Fighting Cancer with my Family and Friends at Relay For Life 17

Greetings friends. This is a special weekend where we remember those people we have lost to cancer over the years and encourage and embrace those of us who are still fighting this horrible disease.

As you can see on the photo, the team that my daughters created is called Early Birds. That’s because those who get tested and find out early that they have cancer are much more likely to survive and have a good outcome than those who don’t. I am so proud to say that due to my pushing over the last year and a bit, 17 people have had PSA tests and as well as knowing they do not have prostate cancer and in one case no breast cancer, they now have a baseline to allow them to catch it early if they do get prostate cancer like me and their survival rate will go up dramatically if they get a little blood test every year.

You will see the number 17 on the back and my daughter’s name on the bottom of the shirt, which was designed and made by her company Empire Promo. The 17 is made up of the names of the people I mentioned above, family and friends that our team is going to spend today honouring, all night and into the morning walking around a track at Millennium Institute on Auckland’s North Shore. You can see there are a lot of names and with a few late additions to the team there would be more if there had been time.

So today and tomorrow we will be walking to honour our people, to help fund research for accessible cures that save lives and don’t require that people sell their homes to pay for treatment, have somewhere to stay if they are coming to Auckland from out of town, like some of the great people I met when I was having radiation treatment at Mercy Hospital, and to thank those of you who donated to our cause, for your generosity. Whilst we do enjoy the event, the camaraderie and activities, we are here for only one reason, which is to save lives.

If you are one of the many people who donated to my account I want to thank you sincerely for your contribution. This is my 4th Relay and my second as a cancer patient. I am 25% short on my target of $1,000. If you would still like to donate, it isn’t too late and you can do so on my Relay For Life page here. I suspect most of you donated either for me (which is very humbling) and/or because of challenges you and people you care about have faced with cancer. I will dedicate laps to each of you and yours and especially to some very good friends who are still fighting the fight and aren’t in a condition to make it today. You know who you are.

I am planning to post a Facebook Live video at some stage so those of you who are friends with me on Facebook will be able to see a little of the event. For the rest, I will put something on YouTube after the event so you can see it too.

I won’t go on. You can follow me on Twitter under the handle of BluesBro, there will be some photos and tweets there as the weekend goes on. If you see them, please let me know. It would be great to share the event with you.

I do also want to send out a special thanks to my friends and colleagues at the New Zealand Transport Agency and Auckland Transport who have supported me in so many ways to date including donations, but much more than that. It hasn’t been the easiest of years and with awesome people giving me encouragement and helping me out during the tougher times, it has given me strength and Hope. 

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Proposed Parking Changes on Apollo Drive in Auckland

I’ve just received a letter which has gone to all owners and occupiers of businesses on Apollo Drive, Rosedale, in response to complaints from local businesses regarding driving safety issues partly due to the large number of cars parked on the side of the road. I have a office on this road and I agree, it is dangerous. It is hard to get in and out of your driveways, both from the perspective of visibility around the parked cars and the heavy traffic on the road pretty much all day.

Cut down, the options they propose are “No stopping at all times” restrictions which means no parking on the road at all; or

A combination of “No stopping at all times” and “Time restricted parking” such as 2 hour parking, which means people have to constantly move their cars or get parking tickets and possibly towed away.

Auckland Transport is seeking views from people who are concerned about this. I have responded to the letter and invite you if it is relevant to also respond. If you have children who go to L’Academie de Danse in Apollo Drive, or to Bear Park Child Care Centre this affects you too. You can respond to Alok Vashista at Auckland Transport on 09-355-3553 and ask for a copy of the letter to understand their suggestions and it includes a form for you to reply with your input and suggestions.

Councils are very keen to encourage business development, construction of new buildings which is a good thing for the city. New buildings mean new jobs and growth of the community. The problem is that councils do not force the building owners to provide sufficient off street parking for the staff of the companies that occupy them. I believe it is the responsibility of Council to ensure that there are enough of street car parks on Apollo Drive. Their town planning people designed the road, specified that it would be an arterial road, which is part of the problem, but they clearly did not ensure there would be sufficient parking spaces both for the businesses and the types of businesses that use the road. The dance academy is a classic example of the problem. How can you have a dance school with hundreds of students share a carpark holding around 20 spaces with Pita Pit which is a very popular fast food business?

Auckland Transport could lay blame on the old council, but the fact is we need a solution now. I believe the solution is:

Vacant Space on Apollo Drive

1. Build some public car parks. There is plenty of space available and the problem was effectively caused by council.

2. Put a large roundabout on the intersection of Apollo Drive and Constellation Drive because part of the problem is people wanting to cross the road to drive in the opposite direction. This means having people give way in both directions.

3. Don’t allow future development of schools or other destination businesses unless they also provide sufficient carparking appropriate to the type of business. Apollo Drive and the side roads are continuing to develop and traffic will continue to grow.

The 2 options offered by Auckland Transport will not work. If people can’t park on the road they work on, where can they park? The problem gets moved and becomes a problem elsewhere, or companies will lose their staff. If people work 8 – 9 hours a day and they can park for 2 hours, they will simply have to hope in their cars every 2 hours, swap car parks, cause more chaos and disruption to the road and to their work day.

Again I say Council are responsible for this situation, not the building owners who had concent for their construction, or the tenants and their staff. They need to fix this in a way that works for everyone, at their cost and ensure that with the ongoing growth they do not allow new buildings to be constructed that do not have sufficient parking space for their neeeds.

If this affects you, here is a ApolloDriveAkTransport that you can download and the response form.