Latest news with #ChrisAllen
Scoop
5 days ago
- General
- Scoop
Water Committee Signs Off As Decision Looms On Replacement
The Ashburton Water Zone Committee signed off at their final meeting on Tuesday. Ashburton Mayor Neil Brown told the committee that the Canterbury Mayoral Forum will be deciding on the future model on Friday at its meeting in Kaikōura. Ten zone committees were launched, joint committees between Environment Canterbury and district councils, in 2010 to implement the Canterbury Water Management Strategy. The Mayoral Forum launched a review of the zone committees in 2023 to consider how best to include local leadership in freshwater decision-making. The new proposed model is for a local leadership group that will consist of ECan, district council, and Rūnanga representatives. Brown said he will be pushing the Ashburton District to retain a stand-alone group under the new structure, and for community representatives, from a local advisory group, to have a seat at the table. 'I can't see any reason why we won't get what we want in Ashburton.' The zone committee's final meeting had chairperson Bill Thomas, who joined the committee in 2016, have the final say. He covered the success, challenges, 'regulations, plan changes and solutions to local issues' the committee has tackled over the years and what the next steps are in the process towards a new model. Thomas thanked the committee members and the community members in attendance for their support and hoped the community voice the zone committee had championed wouldn't be lost in the new model. He hopes the proposed Mid Canterbury Advisory Group model will be a success. Committee member Angela Cushnie provided an update on the progress of forming the group to provide 'the voice of the local community to the Canterbury Mayoral Forum and Canterbury water management strategy in the development, implementation, and reporting' on regional and national policies. During the meeting, the committee received updates from various catchment and landcare groups. Hekeao Hinds Lowlands Catchment Group facilitator Phil Everest thanked the zone committee for their support over the years helping community-led environmental projects get off the ground. 'I think you can see clearly just what a little bit of seed funding can do to actually create good science and good work in our community that would have never have got off the ground without your support,' Everest said. The meeting also included a presentation from Ashburton Forks Catchment Group's Jono Allen, the son of Chris Allen who had served on the committee since 2014 until his death in a farm accident in December. Thomas said a plaque recognising Chris Allen's contribution to the community was being organised to be placed in the Forks catchment area near his family farm.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Sun Country Airlines Will Participate in the 3rd Annual Morgan Stanley Travel & Leisure Conference as Well as the 9th Annual TD Cowen Future of the Consumer Conference
MINNEAPOLIS, May 27, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sun Country Airlines (NASDAQ: SNCY) Chief Financial Officer Bill Trousdale will be participating in a panel at the Morgan Stanley Travel & Leisure Conference on Tuesday, June 3 at 10:15AM EST and a fire side chat at the TD Cowen Future of the Consumer Conference on Wednesday, June 4 at 1:15PM EST. A link to the live webcast can be found on the Sun Country investor relations website at About Sun Country Sun Country Airlines is a new breed of hybrid low-cost air carrier, whose mission is to connect guests to their favorite people and places, to create lifelong memories and transformative experiences. Sun Country dynamically deploys shared resources across our synergistic scheduled service, charter, and cargo businesses. Based in Minnesota, we focus on serving leisure and visiting friends and relatives ('VFR') passengers and charter customers and providing cargo service to Amazon, with flights throughout the United States and to destinations in Mexico, Central America, Canada, and the Caribbean. For photos, b-roll and additional company information, visit CONTACT: Investor Relations Chris Allen IR@ in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Newsroom
29-04-2025
- Politics
- Newsroom
Random people with real power
In 2022, 40 Aucklanders met over five weekends to make a huge decision – how to provide enough drinking water for our biggest city for the next 20 years. These 40 people weren't engineers or hydrologists, planners, or even environmentalists. They were a bunch of randomly selected non-experts: young and old, different nationalities and from all walks of life. And they were there to learn and deliberate and finally make recommendations – to the experts. Listen to the podcast This was New Zealand's first official 'Citizen's Assembly', although the concept – and the way the participants were chosen – dates back to the Ecclesia, the general assembly of Ancient Athens, 2500 years ago. And, spoiler alert, the process worked. Watercare, Auckland's 100 percent council-owned water company, has already commissioned a pilot plant to produce drinking water from the group's preferred option – recycled waste water. Still, when you first hear about random people being entrusted with gnarly political and social decisions, it does sound a bit bonkers. Chris Allen, head of strategic planning for Watercare, Auckland's water supplier, admits he was pretty sceptical when he first heard about the idea. 'I did think it was a bit crazy, because it's taken me 20 years to get to where I am to understand the problem, and I found it difficult to believe that in a much, much shorter period of time, lay people would be able to distill the complications of the work and and come up with a solution everybody could live with.' But as he sat and watched, they did just that. 'It was amazing how quickly they changed from understanding almost nothing to discussing complicated concepts and being quite comfortable talking with each other and with the experts. And much as I hate to say it, they were able to refute and challenge some of the comments the experts were throwing out there.' But why do it at all? Allen says there's a major benefit from a potentially controversial recommendation (making drinking water out of water which might have come from your toilet) coming from a Citizen's Assembly, not from the company: credibility. 'I think the answer of everybody who is in deliberative democracy is that we need more democracy, not less, but we may need a different kind of democracy' Dr Tatjana Buklijas 'As experts, often we will look at all the information, assimilate it, and come up with what we think is the best option for the community. And then we go to the community and say, 'This is what we've done', and they will say, 'Well, how do we know that what you've done was the right thing? We haven't seen any of the background. You're just telling us that that's the right thing. Why should we believe you?' 'The citizens' assembly gave us the mandate to explore, seriously explore, how purified recycled water fits into the water sources available for the Auckland region.' Globally over recent years, citizens' Aasemblies have been used for even more grunty topics – ones the politicians find it hard to touch: abortion reform, for example (Ireland in 2016-2017), and climate change mitigation (France in 2019). The University of Auckland's Matheson Russell, an associate professor in social and political philosophy, and an expert in new models of citizen-led policymaking, says it turns out lay people, regardless of their levels of education and knowledge, are pretty good at making complex decisions – if they are given the chance. 'We typically don't find ourselves in the settings where we're asked to do that kind of work. So if we're asked to vote in a referendum or an election, we don't always have the resources we need in order to make an informed decision. With an election [or a referendum] we know three million other people are also voting, so our vote is not going to count for very much. So there aren't strong incentives to do our homework. 'Whereas, if you're in a citizens' assembly, you're one of several dozen, maybe 50-100, people. You know your contribution matters, and you have the time and the space and the resources to do that job well. And people do.' Citizens' assemblies are part of a movement come to be known as 'deliberative democracy' – where small numbers of people 'deliberate' and come up with a painstakingly considered decision. Jury trials are perhaps the best-known example. But of course deliberative democracy has been happening right here in Aotearoa – and among indigenous people in other parts of the world – for hundreds, if not thousands of years, as Margaret Mutu (Ngāti Kahu, Te Rarawa and Ngāti Whātua), professor of Māori studies at the University of Auckland, knows all too well. 'Māori decision-making is determined by our legal system and our legal system is tikanga, and tikanga is about getting things right. So if there is any issue you must involve everybody who has an interest. Auckland University professor of Māori studies Margaret Mutu. Photo: Supplied 'So you call them all together, usually on a marae, and you make sure everybody has all the information that you have been able to collect so far, and that everybody has a say who needs to. And once you've collected everything you sit down and make a decision.' It can be a slow process, and it's one that often drives Pākehā crazy, she says. 'You just keep talking and keep talking because what you are always aiming for is a decision by consensus and if people are unsettled or don't understand you have to keep going until everybody is settled, until everybody understands and then once you've got that it becomes a decision of the people – literally of the people.' Mutu is familiar with both tikanga and the Pākehā democratic systems – her mum was Scottish, her dad Māori. But increasingly her research and her experience is leading her to question the western, representative democratic model. 'In terms of tikanga, the parliamentary system makes no sense at all because the people who are supposed to look after the wellbeing of this country spend their whole time fighting each other, instead of sitting down and trying to work out what is the best for everybody.' Dr Tatjana Buklijas, a senior research fellow at the University of Auckland and the foremost expert on citizens assemblies in New Zealand, agrees representative democracy often doesn't achieve vital change when it needs to – climate change is a perfect example. There's a temptation for some, she says, to wonder if enlightened authoritarian governments might be a better solution. But that's totally wrong, she says. 'I think the answer of everybody who is in deliberative democracy is that we need more democracy, not less, but we may need a different kind of democracy.'
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pay-by-bank should offer perks: Deloitte
This story was originally published on Payments Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Payments Dive newsletter. Pay-by-bank could dramatically alter the way we pay in the U.S. by decreasing costs for businesses and easing the payment process for shoppers, but the trick is getting consumers and merchants on board, according to a research paper published last month by the consulting firm Deloitte. That means persuading multiple players in the payment ecosystem — including banks, merchants and consumers — that pay-by-bank is an acceptable alternative to traditional ways to pay such as credit cards, according to the paper, which was posted online March 11. As the name suggests, pay-by-bank lets a shopper pay for a good or service by withdrawing money from a bank account and sending it directly to a merchant. The money is often sent via an electronic payment rail such as same-day ACH or the RTP Network, Deloitte said in the paper. Deloitte Managing Director Chris Allen, Senior Manager Tanmay Agarwal, Senior Manager Shalina Vadivale and Manager Amol Kumar authored the paper. Pay-by-bank could let merchants bypass interchange fees charged by card networks, which typically amount to 2% to 4% of a transaction, according to the paper. The payment method also reduces the risk of a chargeback because it has stronger authentication mechanisms, the paper says. Additionally, pay-by-bank gives consumers another payment method and banks the ability to offer their services to previously underbanked populations,the paper said. 'While consumers in the U.S. can pay for their bills, subscriptions, and loan repayments today using their bank account, this option is largely unavailable when it comes to the online or (point-of-sale) checkout experience,' the paper says. The payment method faces a number of obstacles to widespread adoption, Deloitte said in the paper, namely consumers' comfort with credit cards. Major card networks have set up rewards systems that offer perks to shoppers who swipe their cards at the point of sale. American Express, for example, offers some cardholders reservations at high-end restaurants and exclusive access to events such as concerts. To make pay-by-bank more palatable, banks could offer consumers additional services such as lines of credit or rewards points similar to those awarded to credit card holders, Deloitte said. On the merchant side, pay-by-bank must offer a lower cost alternative to credit cards and must be easy to integrate with their existing payment systems, the paper said. Due to the pressure on card networks to reduce interchange fees, banks may eventually need to reduce the costs borne by merchants by ensuring that pay-by-bank is a cheaper alternative, the paper said. Still,Deloitte acknowledged that interchange fee regulation is unlikely under the current presidential administration. Banks, however, can make up for any lost revenue in a number of ways, according to Deloitte. For example, the financial institutions could leverage transaction data to improve their could also offer merchants who use pay-by-bank other services, such as bulk bill pay. Finally, they could expand checkout options to include other payment methods such as buy now, pay later. Recommended Reading Why 'pay-by-bank' faces adoption hurdles in US retail Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
16-04-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Covenant Health Park boasts largest video board in minor league baseball
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WATE) — Sitting in center field of the new home of the Smokies lies the biggest videoboard in minor league baseball. 'You want to go bigger but you know someone is gonna trump you the next year but well carry that fall for a year here and be happy about it,' said Smokies president, Chris Allen. Not just any videoboard, the focal point of the outfield is the shape of Tennessee. A look at what Covenant Health Park could do for Knoxville's economic future 'It was honestly something on a whim. We obviously had been talking about developing a stadium for a long time. Our executive team has been traveling all over for a couple of years now, looking at other ballparks and if you travel to Nashville and you see their videoboard which is a guitar which I think is very fitting,' Allen said. That's when the perfect idea hit. 'We started thinking and I said we should go with a Tennessee-shaped videoboard I thought it would look really cool. We just thought it was a nice touch and it gives us something unique to look at when you come into the ballpark.' Residential developments around Covenant Health Park bring new life to neighborhood With the team moving to Knoxville, they will now be referred to as the Knoxville Smokies. The videoboard a bit of a nod to the old name, but also one that simply just made sense. 'Tennesseans are so proud of their state,' he said. 'I think that is fitting even if we were called the Kodak Smokies back in the old ballpark, so I think they are very proud and I think the fans are gonna love it.' The videoboard adds a distinctive component to the new ballpark. ▶ See more top stories on 'This is a unique ballpark. If you come and visit this ballpark, you're someone like me, you go to a lot of minor league ballparks you come here were gonna have something you've probably never seen before.' A videoboard that sets the Smokies apart in more than ways than one, just as it was intended to. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
