You Have Cancer

At the closing ceremony of Relay For Life on Sunday at the Millennium Institute in Mairangi Bay, Auckland, New Zealand, we were told these are the worst 3 words you can hear in your life. As part of Team Hope Fighters, I was one of a group of awesome people who raised funds through a variety of activities culminating in an 18 hour walking relay. Our group walked the equivalent of Auckland to Blenheim and the full compliment walked the equivalent of Auckland to New York via Los Angeles, collecting over $120,000 for cancer research along the way.

Team Hope Fighters

I lost my first friend, my best childhood mate to cancer at the age of 9. Since then, like most people I have lost lots more. My grandmother, my father-in-law (who was a past President of the Lost Chord Club) and many more. I have relatives who are survivors and one who has only recently found out they have cancer and who didn’t want to tell me.

Relay For Life is a poignant event, which starts of with a Survivors Lap, lead by people who are in remission or still battling this horrendous condition. Many of these people marched for much of the 18 hours of this event which was very inspiring.

We walked through the night and I was pleased to survive sans blisters and managed just over a marathon

Walking through the night

distance, which was a real achievement for me considering I hadn’t trained. One monster in our team was in training for a super marathon in 3 weeks time. I’m not sure exactly how far he ran, but it was in excess of 140km which was amazing.

Blues in the night

During the night there were various activities including games, bands, the lighting of the HOPE lights, food stalls

HOPE

including bacon butties (something my stomach couldn’t handle the thought of at 3 in the morning, despite the pervasive aroma which I would normally relish) but I did see a number of Police enjoying them after a brief team run in full kit, very brief I might say, but it was great to see them there. It would be really cool to see an official team from them next year:)

Candle Tribute Bags

People created candle bags (LED Candles for safety) and left messages for loved ones which twinkled during the night, adding to the spectacle. Reminding people why we were there.

I made an interesting discovery at about 4 in the morning which was that it was pretty much just as painful getting back up and moving after sitting down for a while as it was being back on the track, so back I went.

Looking out from our tent site

Ultimately this was an awesome event, which despite having said after walking through the mud in Kumeu last year, that I wouldn’t do it again, I will most likely do it again next year, although I might train for it next time. After all I can’t be satisfied with only 44km in 2014:)

Don’t judge me

In closing many thanks to my personal sponsors, to all sponsors, huge thanks to the many volunteers and kudos to the cancer survivors. Cancer doesn’t respect age, gender, ethnicity or anything else and I doubt there is anyone who hasn’t been touched by it themselves or through a friend, family member or colleague.

One footnote. I’m seeing ads on TV for cycling for cancer and other events, which appear to be commercially funded. I didn’t see any news media at this event at all, despite the number of people all giving their time for free other than a TV crew who appeared to be recording a documentary. Where was the NZ Herald? Where were the radio stations? Where was TV One and TV 3? Where was the North Shore Times?

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Is Water Care Services an Oxymoron?

Our water bill has shot up in recent times, we had a leak repaired in November and it settled down to its new high, but January went nuts to the level of a 6 person household. Ours is 3. We couldn’t understand why, but it hurt, especially on top of the new increases in water fees on the North Shore in Auckland. Last week we finally discovered a new leak right by the water mains and on 8 February we called Water Care Services. 

Ware Leak

The call center staff were very friendly and said it would probably take 3 working days for someone to come and check it out. While we were waiting for this visit a lot of water went down the drain. A neighbor had a similar problem and Water Care sent them a contractor to check out the problem.

On The 13th I rang again and asked what was happening. They put me on hold, came back and said I was in a priority queue. I was pleased that something was happening. I asked if the contractor could ring when they were coming and I was put on hold again and she said that was fine, they would ring when they were on the way. I told her I was working from home on the 14th, so that would be great. I had a plumber booked for the 14th in case the problem was on our side.

No one came to our house on the 14th, but a Water Care contractor went to a similar problem about 4 doors down the road. My next door neighbor asked them if they could have a look at my problem while they were there. He said he would look into it. He didn’t. I postponed the plumber.

I rang the Water Care call center again on the 14th  and they explained that the contractor couldn’t look at our place because he didn’t have access to the works order for it. She said someone would be there before 11 on the 15th and they would call before coming as requested.

I worked from home again on the 15th, wanting to be there when the contractor came. At around 11:30 I went to the letter box, the area around the meter box was very muddy and water was coming out of the mains box in much greater volume than before. In the letter box was a note from a company called Lend Lease saying “SUSPECT YOU HAVE A PRIVATE LEAK”

I contacted the plumber who is unavailable for another 3 days and now we walk backwards and forwards to the water main, turning it on and off as required. The plumber said to us that there appear to be many instances in the area of higher pressure in the pipes (due to increasing water supply capacity works for the new Long Bay subdivisions and other growth in the area) causing leaks.

So a couple of questions for you and Water Care. How is it that you can send 3 contractors to the same street in the same street in different instances and you don’t have the technology in the 21st century to identify that there are other jobs that could be done at the same time? Sending a van out from wherever and back 3 times must be quite expensive (a bit like my water bill). If that happens 3 times in one week, just in my street, how much extra does it cost. Calls like mine to the call center which had local sounding people (which must be pretty big, because I never spoke to the same person twice), Maybe half an hour of time. Calls from them to contractors, another 15 minutes. Processing multiple works orders, maybe 20 minutes. 3 trips from vans to my street, with driving time, probably an hour each. That’s a lot of ratepayers money. It’s also a lot of wasted water, are the dams overflowing after this dry summer, that we can afford to waste it?

Does Water Care Services have sustainability KPI’s?

I’m starting to understand why Water Care charges so much. I know they have a geospatial database, one would assume they have a good CRM. Hopefully they will give me a rebate on the excess water for January and February, which I can apply to the plumber’s bill. I’m looking forward to having him fix the problem in a couple of days time.

I am wondering if other people have had similar experiences? Please feel free to leave a comment. By the way I am not a whingeing stirrer, I give credit where it is due to, for example my recent blog about AA Insurance, who provided me with fantastic service after someone dinged my car in a car park and took off. The thing is, I am a ratepayer, I am paying massive amounts of money for water and waste-water and I suspect that with better management or systems, I could be paying a whole lot less.