Musical ends on high note
I wish to congratulate everyone involved in The Sound of Music at Amdram Theatre on a magnificent production.
Led by Lynn Whiteside and drawing on the many theatrical talents, young and not so young, that marvellous Whanganui has to offer, this was a stunner and Mike and
I loved every minute of it.
We attended the final performance on Sunday afternoon and joined the last of the full house audiences in a standing ovation.
Every aspect of the show was wonderful. The team will miss it enormously because it was obvious that this was the perfect team.
Thank you all for the joy you gave to us and the many WhanganuI people who loved it too
JOAN STREET
Whanganui
Bottle returns
Great news! As reported (Herald, September 25) the Government has announced a "new bottle return scheme", which is more than likely to be a game changer for recycling rates - aiming to increase them from 50 per cent to 80 per cent.
The programme involves a refundable deposit on containers, which may be 10 to 20 cents. There are over 40 such schemes operating globally, including my childhood home outside Detroit, Michigan. The Michigan Beverage Containers Initiated Law started in 1976.
As a child and pre-teen I remember associating empty beverage containers on the roadside as cash. There were days in the early 80s when my friends and I could earn up to US$10 by collecting what we called "empties". Years later when we attended professional baseball games in downtown Detroit we gave our empty beer bottles to down-on-their-luck men who waited with shopping trolleys they would fill with the "returnables." Grassroots entrepreneurism. These laws incentivise individuals to recycle and take pressure off local governments. In the case of Whanganui it's likely to save ratepayers large sums by eliminating the need to fund kerbside recycling. These deposit and return schemes are the type of win-win-win solutions that are good for the local economy, the environment, and people.
NELSON LEBO
Okoia
Membership confusion
I can relate to the letter submitted by VW Ballance in the Chronicle (September, 28) concerning the result of the RSA/Cosmopolitan amalgamation.
I think all of us returned veterans were hoodwinked during the "amalgamation" of two clubs.
Like Mr Ballance I recently went down to the "Paris Underground" to renew my RSA membership and pay for the membership of a club that I had never requested. Okay, the Metro (actually Cossie Club) membership was stated as $20 and to continue my RSA membership as a returned serviceman was going to cost me an additional $10. Fair enough I thought as the $10 RSA charge was to go straight to the National RSA body. I was told a membership card for the Club Metro would follow in days and the RSA card would follow in a month or so. When I questioned this I was told the card encapsulating membership of both clubs would not be available until some time in 2020. Now I know why.
D PARTNER
Eastown
