'Grumpy Baby boomerangers' - Ian Cowie at The Telegraph

reports on demographic and financial trends in Britain that threaten to create some tension between the debt-ridden and jobless young and their cashed-up property owning baby boomer parents.

He looks at the notion that many youngsters can't afford to leave home and are sat steaming and resentful in their bedrooms. A small number are even hoping their parents kark it and pass on the dosh...sheesh.

The growing financial plight of younger adults is building tensions between the generations that may create some ugly scenes in homes across the country in years ahead. Santander – the Spanish bank that bought Abbey, Alliance & Leicester among others – surveyed 2,000 people to come to the conclusion that student debt and shortage of jobs for young people has created a generation of what it calls “baby boomerangers”.
These are adult children aged over 18 unable to leave their parents’ home who seem to be slouching on sofas across the land, resenting Mum and Dad’s good fortune. More than four in 10 of the families affected see no hope of these young adults flapping their wings and finding a home of their own any time in the foreseeable future.
Reza Atta-Zadeh, a director of Santander, says: “The term ‘flying the nest’ could soon be made redundant as the credit crunch and rising cost of living is altering the structure of Britain’s families.” The most disturbing research published today, suggests that one in five young adults admits to “looking forward” to a receiving an inheritance.
More than one in 10 said they were relying on these future inheritances to pay off debts or provide a deposit on their first home. A ghoulish 3 per cent of the 1,300 people questioned by the website MyVoucherCodes said they would rather have the money than keep their parents alive

Does Te Awamutu’s new retail development affect main street businesses?

Worldwide evidence suggest this is the case. America has lead the Mall phenomena and are already re-inventing the malls as the next trend is being developed by the ever cycle of keeping the shopping experience fresh and exciting.

So the simple answer is yes, Te Awamutu city centre retailers are wise to be concerned and sit up. What is the difference between the new shopping centres and the traditional town centre shops? The obvious differences are national branded shops with slick marketing and displays, utilise every opportunity to maximise profit.

Shadow of former selves

According to James Bacos, an American retail expert at a German branch of Mercer Management Consulting, it took two decades for the centres to recover but only as a shadow of their formers selves, reduced to specialty shops, boutiques and restaurants.

History tells us that the chamber of commerce is ineffective as an association to band retailers together only a handful of retail outlets have the foresight and recognise this but are unable to come up with anything to combat the competition.

The need to increase marketing requires a larger budget, but a lot of smaller shops don’t want to foot the bill, nor want to put in the extra effort. Most bought a business as a lifestyle investment and would never have contemplated the energy needed to run in this new competitive market.  

Winning formula

‘Price, range and quality’ is the winning formula of shopping malls and is hard to beat.

There are no features in the main CBD to bring in either tourists or outside shoppers.

Parking is one major consideration as we all know and want to drive to the shop.

The novelty factor may in time develop permanent habits. Main street retailers should have been working hard to maintain their share of the retailing dollar. And with the current economic climate the competition just got harder.

Some Rspca back ground

http://rspcanotwhattheyseem.blogspot.com/

Te Awamutu SPCA breakdown

Looking back over the Te Awamutu history until the disbanding of the Te Awamutu SPCA committee removing them and taking over the control of the facility by the RSPCA national office under direction of Charles Cadwallader. The reason for doing this in the first place was, as has been stated publicly by Charles Cadwallader in different public statements, the facility was under managed. Under managing their consent, over population by a fantastic number, (including animals from volunteers who would bring their own animals to the centre). Bob Kerridge does in his office in Auckland all the time. After all these are animal lovers and they own animals themselves, and enjoy their company. Further there where claims of under manageging the cleanliness of the facility with faeces and flies in the facility. Further claims of under managing the long term tenancies of animals and generally breaking the Animal welfare Act by acting as animal inspectors and making financial alliance’s with interested parties.

Now we have had some time to reflect on these things let analyse these and get the facts straight.

First some historical facts, Te Awamutu SPCA has been around for 30 or more years and as with all volunteer community organisations gone through highs and lows as members came and went and with strong leadership came with real commitment and some of the true animal heroes are still on the scene. At one point the group was almost defunct after the RSPCA disbanded the committee and one must remember this organisation was a back yard operation. But when the group was close to falling over and the RSPCA was about to become the recipient of all the cash in the kitty (including a bequest), a local vet stepped in and called to wider Te Awamutu community to take action or loose a badly needed service that truly looked after the animals in need of a second chance and life. this was the start of what was until recently the Te Awamutu SPCA Animal Heaven. The steering group started again with energy that has not been seen before and from this back yard operation the plan to do it properly was formed and Fundraising and building began.
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A design for a 35 dogs and 100 cat facility was worked on and eventually build. Along the way when in the out skirts of town the facility was connected to all and every dog barking for miles. This resulted in the overnight housing to be noise proofed and ultimately a reduction in dogs allowed to be cared for, down to only 20, almost halve the original required size for this town. The Council has a 5 dog facility and started to rely on this for dogs the Dog Control staff decided should get another chance. So the need to turn dogs over faster was created with a very active re-homing focused operation. With this close working relationship between Waipa district council staff animal welfare worked great. This was until Council had to swap Cambridge dog control oficers between Te Awamutu and Cambridge. The person had a price on her head for her aggressively catching and killing of “stay dogs”. Even if they were on their own section she would price them of and hurdle them in her van before residents knew of the plight of their beloved pet. She herself owns 8 dogs and after the Waipa Dsistrict Council passed a by law to restrict ownership of dogs to maximum 5 with permit she had to move out to a neighbouring council to get around this by law.
You can see where this is going and yes on her insistence she organised through the RSPCA enforcement inspectors (ex-policemen) to raid the Te Awamutu facility to get rid ones and for all this animal mad committee that has a no-kill policy and hides dogs from her that she wants to kill to satisfy her mental quota. And when a green new Environment Team Leader was place in charge of the council dog enforcement department earlier this year she saw her chance and her dream finally came true.
[Image]After decimating the successful working committee and place a volunteer in charge the Te Awamutu SPCA has slowly lost all its gains. No money to pay mortgage or power. Phone is about to be cut of after the RSPCA run up massive bills ringing all over the world. No advertising and consequently no animals re-homed. Waipa animal control officer after putting down eight of the SPCA and peoples privately owned dogs is using this facility as if it where its own. A recent introduction of a Parvo infected dog to the facility and the consequence re-homing to a volunteer high lights the incompetence of those involved. This virus is now on all the animals that come through the facility. All dogs used to go into a holding situation and get checked by a vet before it was allowed to join other animals let alone get let out for re-homing.   

                                        

                                                                          The Parvo virus

                                

Sadly all the expertise has been lost amateurs with good intentions are making a hash of it and the RSPCA has run away trying to find anything on past members to make out they knew all along what they were doing. It now appears they had no grounds to do the raid and if anything they have done more damage to the lives of Waipa's abandoned animals than anyone before. So we had the best of people and systems but some people in powerful positions combined with ignorance and self-interest have managed to embarrass themselves to the point they cannot admit to the truth and now have to stick to their original story and in the process we are left with badly treated local hero's, dead animals and no future for the others or future animals in need.

WHAT A MESS!

Update: http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/6571372/Troubled-SPCA-branch-is-put-out-of-its-misery

Te Awamutu Museum/Cultural Centre

Te Awamutu District Council is hell bend on pushing through the proposed new Museum/Cultural Centre. It is true a committee have done all the right things, planning communication, and having flagged this possibility in the Council books. But lets take a step back, If you like myself get turned off by “boring subjects” you can be excused to turn off by this kind of process. And dreams are free, in comparison if you want your dream to come true and want the community pay for this that is an entire new proposition. Look Councillors and Committee members you now have got our full attention. Please rewind as this is going to take a bit more than “it is to late”. Lets first of all recognise the fact that we are in possibly the worst financial situation due to banks over inflating property prices crash. And secondly the Council by what seems their right to increase rates annually regardless of the outside world realities. And thirdly a lot of people are struggling due to the shrinking employment market and rate payers are put in a unfortunate position of having to cash in their assets to live. Now lets pick up this grandiose project again, it is not going to happen. Possibly the timing of the forthcoming elections is perfect for the community to have a say and to veto this grand scheme. What I can not figure out is why have the drivers of this project not picked up on the communities angst? Is it because they are all retired or semi retired seniors that have had a opportunity for a good life and used their time well to make substantial incomes. And that they may very well be isolated from the reality of the current financial climate and can’t figure out what they are all getting so excited about. After all the process is being followed and this will be a great asset to the wider community. I was wondering that 1/3 of the funds where going to be rates funded (my assets), the other 1/3 asset sales (our assets), and the last third by donations, (our assets). Yep this will be a interesting few months and no local bodies are not boring any more and yes we are hanging on every word that comes from council…they have been a bit quite lately!

Look at these children, introducing the grandkids. Henry on the left Pinky behind and little me me me on the left!

Kick start

This could be a interresting start of things to come!