The four lay staff and three priests, who previously worked within the three parishes of St Mary's, St Patrick's and St Thomas More, are presently working out of the unified parish's temporary site at St Mary's in Greenmeadows.

As parish pastoral council member David Marshall said, the location for the staff will eventually be be at the more central St Patrick's Church but money would have to be spent.

The Parish House in Napier is now vacant and two options for its future were now on the table.

It can either be converted and refurbished up to earthquake-risk levels or demolished to make way for a new office building.

"That is the challenge we have to take on," Marshall said.

He says services will continue at all three parishes and a "hub" of volunteers will be at them each morning to deal with parishioner inquiries and provide hospitality "for visitors from wherever they might come".

He said the unification mass on May 24 as probably the most significant event in the 165-year history of the church in Napier.

Last month the unifying of the three parishes was celebrated by Bishop Charles Drennan, the Bishop of Palmerston North Diocese and the three priests of the new parish Father Peter Head, Father Mike Wooller and Father John Mori. The event saw the Municipal Theatre in Napier packed with about 1000 people.

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: nzherald.co.nz

Despite help from Trinity Methodist Church in Napier for the GayOk group, backing from local schools, funding bodies and the wider community was not forthcoming.

"There is a real stigma around homosexuality in Hawke's Bay and it truly does take a toll on gay youths," GayOk co-founder Jason Gerbes said.

"We were trying to provide support for the gay community in Hawke's Bay, which personally we found a lack of."

Trinity Methodist's Reverend Tony Franklin-Ross, 46, an "out-gay minister", was keen to help GayOk.

"The parish has had a mission statement for a number of years to be inclusive across a range of aspects such as age, gender, culture and sexuality," Mr Franklin-Ross said.

"The prominent discourse in the media is that the church has a negative attitude towards sexuality, but we were happy to say 'we don't affirm that'."

If youth lacked a sense of belonging, they would go where there was a better sense of community and more support services, he said.

Continue reading

Behaviour at Hawke's Bay schools supports findings of a New Zealand study showing children exposed to the drug prenatally lagged behind their peers developmentally and were not "school ready".

The problem could even be worse in Hawke's Bay because of a combination of social factors that lead to increased use of drugs such as "P".

Nelson Park School principal Nevan Bridge said the Marewa school reflected society and the number of children requiring extra support was increasing.

"We can't really quantify it, but what I can say is [the number of] children with specific needs are growing and the things we are dealing with are new.

"We see more and more of these children, and you can't say these three are and these aren't, but what I can say is there has been a significant number of children who are violent or anti-social, children who can't focus or concentrate for any length of time."

Dr Wouldes said it was difficult to determine the exact influence of methamphetamine as all the mothers were using a cocktail of drugs, including cannabis, alcohol and cigarettes.

However, the children were starting to reach school age and preliminary results showed all of the characteristics Mr Bridge sees in his classrooms. Read more

Sources

• Hawke's Bay Today
• Image: The Best of Photojournalism 2009