A whole lot of bits and pieces from your local volunteer fire brigade this month…

We managed to get our annual cricket match against the Dairy in before the weather turned…the result was very predictable with the Dairy winning for the 6th year in a row!  We’re hard at work on a plan to win next year but have to acknowledge that it may well involve a more liberal interpretation of the rules!

We sent a team of Greenhithe firefighters down to New Plymouth to participate in the New Zealand Fire Service National Squash Tournament.  This is the 5th consecutive year we’ve played in the tournament and have taken out the title the last two years.  This year we entered two teams and came a very credible and 2nd and 7th.

We were very pleased and proud to organise a small service at the War Memorial gates on Roland Road on Anzac Day.  It was heartening to see such a great community turn out, especially since we’d purposely advertised it quite low key.  We wanted to “test the waters” first but now that we know there’s a genuine interest in an ongoing Anzac Day service in Greenhithe, we’ll make it bigger and better next year…watch this space.  A huge thanks to everyone who made the effort to come along on the day, and especially to senior firefighter Gunner Ashford and qualified firefighter Isabelle Lardeux-Gilloux for organising such a lovely service.

As a volunteer organisation ourselves, we know how nice it is when people make the effort or take the time to say thanks.  With that in mind, we’d like to say a few thanks of our own this month to some of the people in the community that have supported us recently or who support us regularly.

Firstly, our immediate neighbours.  Thanks for putting up with the siren when it goes off at all times of the day and night, and thanks for your understanding when we train on Station on a Monday night.  It can get noisy sometimes but our neighbours never complain and we genuinely appreciate their support.

Thanks to Dean McIntosh who audits our accounts every year free of charge.  And thanks to Kim McIntyre who recently did some much needed groundwork at the back of the Station free of charge.

Finally this month, we’d like to point out to those of you who haven’t noticed yet that we’ve recently installed a park bench out the front of the Fire Station.  This particular bench was donated to the community by the local Lion’s Club many years ago and we managed to salvage it before the old store was pulled down.  We also salvaged a whole lot of bricks from the old store’s chimney so we’ve used those to pave the area underneath the seat.  Please feel free to use it if you’re walking by and need a break!

That’s all for now…all the best until next month.
Deputy Chief Gareth Wallis