Light the fuse

Chapter 4

Blessed are the toolmakers

Cast-Iron Guarantee with Heavy Lifter: Typically sold without so much as a simple instruction diagram—much less reference to either Cimino or Archimedes—this tool may or may not be unthinkingly inflicting half as much costly havoc as its impossible-to-use-undamagingly, five-foot-tall predecessor. image Trig Instruments

Contents
author Cimino
work-in-progress published 20240719

This tool is designed for the foot of the lifter to be placed on the frame of the manhole, rather than the concrete surround. Used as designed, this significantly reduces the risk of damage to the surround by placing pressure only on the metal rim of the manhole.
Cimino Cole | Trig Instruments

First component suggested itself on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Auckland Regional Parks. Cimino had convinced his fellow Friends of Regional Parks committee members that it was an auspicious time to propose a 50-year plan for the 41 000-hectare regional parks network. Cimino failed, however, to convince his colleagues that their organisation should advocate for the establishment of an enduring fund to acquire addition regional parkland, over the next 50-year period.

Cimino’s notion was for the fund to be powered by a regional-park-user union, recruited from the parks’ six million visitors per year. The member’s modest annual subscriptions—in their entirety—would leverage co-funding from charitable funders, public-spirited corporates, and regional and central government. That the concept implied the need campaign-management platform, went without saying.

Next iteration of the concept came courtesy of the key Mahurangi Coastal Path infrastructure: the Judge Arnold Turner Footbridge that Auckland Council was never going to fund, by itself. From his years living in Hong Kong, fellow coastal-path trustee was considerably impressed by the Community Chest operating in the metropolis, with is huge disparity of wealth. He was particularly taken with its ethos of passing donations to the individual charities without a cent being skimmed off for admin—that cost being picked up by the well-heeledcouldn’t resist an oblique reference to spurs, albeit those adorning the heels of fighting cocks Hong Kong Jockey Club. The Mahurangi Coastal Path Trust had been honoured by receiving the advice of Adam Gard’ner and Duane Major, who made the Buy this Beach campaign look easy. Their heroic, round-the-clock work away from the cameras, belied the effortless face they presented to the public—a master class they very humbly shared with the coastal path trustees, one opportune afternoon in Auckland. While, in raising the more than $2 million required to buy Awaroa Beach while most of Aotearoa was on its summer holiday, Gard’ner and Major had been spectacularly successful, they stressed that they had had the support of a very strong community, and that, if they’d had their druthers, they would have done a great deal more planning and preparation.

Waiwera Going Begging: Pioneering a Moonbeams Moonshot platform by which, for example, the Waiwera Hot Pools could again charm current and future generations should not be beyond the wit of New Zealanders. photographer Frederick George Radcliffe

When devising the 2023 Buy Waiwera campaign, Cimino and his enthusiastic collaborators could see that the social-media layer was needed, to encourage people to readily form and grow their own support teams. Individuals and teams would be provided the agency to help build the campaign from the ground up, beginning with the all-important quest to find the face, or faces, of the mission…

A build-as-you-go platform was envisaged that, fully scoped, would manage a campaign from its inception, including drawing up a shortlist candidate campaigns, and their faces, from which the Moonbeams Moonshot campaign would be voted next to be painstakingly prepared for the launching pad…

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