The Weekend for Sunday 12 January 2020

 

8:09 Kiwi volunteers helping Australian animals after fires 

The devastating fires in Australia continue to burn, and much of the attention has been on the terrible impact it's had on the country's animals. 

Millions have died in the fires, including native beasts - and there are fears some will never recover and may even become extinct, like the Kangaroo Island dunnart, a small mouse-sized mammal. 

Volunteers from New Zealand have flown over to help with the recovery, including Animal Evac New Zealand, which specialises in animal evacuation in disaster situations. 

The trust was founded by Steve Glassey former chief executive of Wellington SPCA. 

08:15 Claire Concannon - aboard the JOIDES Resolution 

The JOIDES  Resolution is a research ship that drills into the ocean floor, taking samples then studying those sampes to see what secrets they reveal. 

The information helps scientists better understand the Earth's history, geology, and climate change. 

Claire Concannon is a Science Outreach Projects Coordinator at Otago Museum. 

She's aboard the JOIDES Resolution for its current expedition - its been heading deep into the South Pacific since the start of this month, and is there to collect samples to study the Paleogene period, which was between 65 and 25 million years ago. 

Claire's job is to tell the world about the journey, and what the scientists discover. 

08:35 Identifying unmarked graves in Otago 

Dr Peter Petchey and Professor Hallie Buckley from the University of Otago have worked with the communities, family descendants and local runaka as they've excavated the Milton's St. John's Anglican Cemetery, and at the Ardrossan and Gabriel Street Cemeteries in Lawrence. 

Concerned members of the community wanted to define the boundaries of the cemeteries and to confirm if there were burials in the unmarked sections of the fenced cemetary grounds.

09:07 Paula Penfold - Investigative journalist 

Watching three Afghani mothers kissing their childrens' graves was almost too much for Paula Penfold, after more than two decades of investigative reporting.

The Stuff Circuit journalist added New Zealand Television Awards Reporter of the Year to what must be a bulging cabinet, after working on some of the highest profile stories of recent years.

The Teina Pora case, where his wrongful conviction for the murder of Susan Burdett saw the young man spend 21 years in jail, Paula has described as "the hardest but most rewarding story" she's done so far.

09:30 St John ambulance Lakes Territory Manager Leisa Tocknell 

Our lifesavers series continues with to a member of the St John ambulance team. 

Leisa Tocknell is Lakes Territory Manager, and area which covers Murupara, Reporoa, Taupo, Turangi and Omori.

09:45 Protecting wildlife on the Ashley-Rakahuri river 

Interest groups that are often at loggerheads when it comes to conserving waterways in many parts of the country, have forged a strong working relationship as members of the Ashley-Rakahuri Rivercare Group.

This precious braided river near Rangiora was in a bad way and declining 20 years ago, before the group joined forces with local councils and the Department of Conservation to take action.

The volunteers are successfully protecting wildlife like the nationally critical black-billed gulls, and nationally vulnerable wrybills and banded dotterels - while still allowing gravel extraction and 4WDs in the area.

10:05 Samantha Hughes - creating an easier way to take urine samples from babies 

Samantha Hughes is a young designer who's identified a need in the healthcare system for a new approach to designing equipment that's often impractical.

The Massey University student's first project is called Clean Catch, a new non-invasive device to collect a sample of sterile urine from children who aren't potty trained and who need an urgent diagnosis. 

She's working on the design with the support of the Auckland District Health Board.

10:15 Wally Maloney and Sally Ford from the Melbourne Ska Orchestra 

Now to our music feature, and this time we're crossing the ditch to Australia to speak to a ska band with a difference - namely its sheer size. 

The Melbourne Ska Orchestra started in 2003 and has a line up that spans from 18 to 36 members. 

They've played all over the world, and in 2018 took on the challenge of recording a song a week, for the entire year. 

I spoke to band members Wally Maloney, and Sally Ford. 

11:04 Making Miniatures with the Lower Hutt makers club 

They make fishbones out of toothpicks, potato chips from the seeds of capsicums - can turn almost any object into something that can be used in the tiny worlds they create. 

Miniature makers are people who create incredibly life like objects at a fraction of their usual size. 

The Lower Hutt Miniature Makers are a group of about 25 people who meet regularly to learn how to and create tiny objects, to create tiny scenes. 

Laura Dooney went to meet four of the club members, Rio Cox, Gay Buchanan, Irene James and Christine Kiddey, to talk all things tiny.  

11:20 Olympic hopeful Andrea Anacan - kata fighter 

New Zealand Summer Olympic karate hopeful Andrea Anacan learnt the martial art in part to save herself if she was kidnapped when her family was still living in the Phillippines.

They moved to New Zealand when Andrea was 12, by then she'd been training in karate for 8 years. 

The black belt says she's ready to fight for her place on the New Zealand Olympic team in the non contact karate discipline of kata.

11.40 Meet the booksellers - Stella Chrystostomou 

For today's trip around booksellers of the country, we head to Nelson, to Volume and speak to Stella Chrystostomou 

11.45 Doris de Pont on the 2010s - the decade of leggings

The 2010s have been declared the decade of leggings.

That was coined by US fashion writer Maya Singer in which she says about half of New York women seem to be wearing them out and about not just in the gym. They're comfortable she writes, and versatile and just cool, epitomising the rise of athleisure.

Lynn Freeman asks New Zealand fashion historian Doris de Pont, who created the Fashion Museum a decade ago, if she agrees.