Regular JP service desk work keeps us on our toes and makes us very professional, experienced Justices. That’s the beauty of working on service desks. You don’t get stale.

It is nearly time to celebrate Christmas.

Two thousand and twenty.... a year a lot of us won’t have fond memories of. Our 18 service desks ground to a halt on 20 March when Covid hit our shores. We were the first New Zealand JP Association to suspend our desks for the safety of our clients and Justices.

Parklands desk recommenced 12 June followed closely by the other 17 desks.

August 12 saw our desks suspended again. It was starting to feel like the Mamma Mia movie “Here we go again”. Halswell, Kaiapoi, Lincoln, Linwood, Papanui, Rangiora and Shirley recommenced 22 September with the other desks following suit a day or so later. We were back in business again.....hurrah.

All our service desk Justices have been so resilient, so flexible, adapting cheerfully to different working conditions (we were very health and safety conscious). Our Justices are a cohesive group of 18 “tight teams” who don’t hesitate to help and support each other.

The first desk I worked on was at Linwood on 5th May 2015 by myself as a new Justice and looking back my notes show I processed a lot of certified copies, statutory declarations and that clients bought a lot of forms in not completed.
Fast forward to 24th November 2020 at Linwood …..we have for some time now had two Justices working together on many of our desks; you feel really supported having a colleague to work with.  I worked with John Syme who is always great company.  We saw 31 clients between us, still had one or two forms presented not fully completed and we handled a variety of work. A lot of forms we see now are for hardship grants, something we didn’t see much of previously.

The Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act 2009 places obligations on New Zealand agencies to detect and deter money laundering and terrorism financing requiring agencies to verify the identity of their clients. We are asked to assist with this in certifying identification documents on a regular basis.

Regular JP service desk work keeps us on our toes and makes us very professional, experienced Justices. That’s the beauty of working on service desks. You don’t get stale.

This year has seen a number of new Justices sitting in on our service desks and this provides a wonderful opportunity to buddy up with an experienced Justice and witness first hand the huge range of work we handle. Often these new Justices will join one of our desks which helps tremendously to maintain our service desk numbers. We ask that all Justices working on our desks be accredited which shows the public that we are keeping up with our education.

2020 saw some of our valued, treasured Justices retire.….as with any organisation there will always be members retiring but you have all left “big shoes to fill”. You have radiated warmth and kindness, given generously of your time in a professional manner to our community and always willing to go the extra mile to help clients, your service desk teams and myself. Thank you for all your work and we also thank your partners’ and families who have generously shared you with us.

On behalf of our Canterbury JP Council sincere thanks to our service desk colleagues for their work on our 18 desks providing this wonderful, valued community service.  Even though our desks were suspended for approximately four months, we still saw 2,289 more clients than in the previous twelve-month period. Neville Brown graphed our impressive work.

The graph starts in September 2018 and finishes in August 2020

The green line represents the number of certified copies
The next line down (brown) represents the number of clients
The purple line represents the number of statutory declarations
The blue line represents the number of JP hours worked
The orange line represents the number of “other” documents
The teal line represents the number of affidavits

The very best wishes to you and yours for a happy, safe, relaxing Christmas and New Year.

Service desk rosters over the Festive season 2020/2021

Amberley, 18 Dec last day resumes 15 Jan
Bishopdale, 23 Dec last day resume 06 Jan

Darfield, open each Wednesday throughout
ChCh South, open right through each Tuesday

Fendalton, 19 Dec last day resume 09 Jan
Halswell, 22 Dec last day resume 05 Jan

Kaiapoi, 29 Dec last day resume 12 Jan
Lincoln, open right through each Tuesday but effective 29 Dec hours reduce to 10 am to 12 noon

Linwood, 15 Dec last day resume 12 Jan
Oxford, 10 Dec last day resume 21 Jan

Papanui, open right through each Tuesday
Parklands, 18 Dec last day resume 08 Jan

Rangiora, 22 Dec last day resume 05 Jan
Rolleston, Monday desk open all of December( closed 04 Jan public holiday) resume 11 Jan
Thursday desk last day 24 Dec resume 07 Jan

Shirley, open right through each Tuesday
Spreydon, open right through each Thursday

Sumner, 19 Dec last day reopen 09 Jan
Upper Riccarton, 15 Dec last day reopen 12 Jan

Please note effective Tuesday 29 December our Lincoln desk is reducing their hours to 10 am to 12 noon (just 2 hours). The lack of students at Lincoln University has reduced their workload.

They will continue to monitor the situation.

Some of our desk coordinators have generously contributed a few words to round off the year:

Fendalton desk by Brent Philip
Well, what a year it has been with the closures of libraries due to the virus. The team at Fendalton have risen to the occasion with enthusiasm and professionalism.

Earlier in the year, it was noticed that approximately 60% of the clients needed only a small number of documents certified but with the numbering system in place, were having to wait in line for some time. After discussions with the team and Gwen, we decided to trial an “Express desk” for clients with four documents or less. The other two rostered Justices would deal with more complicated sets of documents. The outcome has been an outstanding success.

I wish to commend the whole team for the hard work they all have put in this year to make our Fendalton service desk a success.

Papanui desk by Bronwyn Welsh
I’m not sure if all the libraries supplied safe but clumsy screens for JPs to work from but Papanui certainly did. It took good planning to store stamps, notebooks, pens, sanitiser, tracing papers and manuals around these huge screens and then work out how to transfer stat decs and cert copies through the small hole or give up and pass them around the side. Not to mention the problem of hearing what the client needed with the Perspex barrier between us and them.....but we did feel relatively safe.

A big thank you to many of the JPs on my list for doing what they could when they could when they were often immunocompromised themselves. I appreciate each of you.
(note from your convenor.....all CCC libraries provided the perspex screens they had from covid)

Rangiora desk by Neil Falconer
Greetings from us at the Rangiora Library Signing Desk!

It has certainly been a year of three halves and major uncertainty caused by Covid 19, but for the JP team at Rangiora Library, we’ve made the best of a bad situation and have never stopped helping our local people get their JP needs attended to, apart from the earlier months of lock-down.

Even so, our group of experienced, dedicated JPs has attended to the needs of hundreds of people. We have worked in an environment where we’ve been looked after and kept ourselves safe.

When I was invited to take over the reins for the desk from Stan Hackwell 18 months ago, I never dreamed it would be such a thoroughly satisfying experience. Our Desk JPs are all accredited, which I believe is very important, especially when we’re dealing with more complex issues than ever before. We must present a combined face of competence to the public to maintain their confidence in what we do. By the way, I regard Stan as our “patron”: he is a person of immense knowledge and experience.

Our 3 hours on the job each Tuesday at the library is well established and we enjoy a very good working relationship with the library staff, CAB volunteers and the occasional interaction with Waimakariri District Council people.

The Rangiora Desk JP group has been very stable with very few changes in the last year and a half: Mike Hammersley QSM JP (Retired), one of the originals who with Stan set up the Rangiora Desk. He decided to retire during the year after decades of stirling service. From a numbers perspective, we were also very fortunate this year to engage the services of Barbara Heaton, who with husband John, came down to Rangiora from Waikanae, north of Wellington. Barbara was previously the local convenor for the signing desk at Paraparaumu Library. Plenty of imported experience there!

There have been so many people who have contributed to the success and reliability of the Rangiora Desk. My team has been only too willing to fill the monthly roster and have the Desk ticking over without any exceptions or absences. It’s important too, to thank our Canterbury Association Service Desks’ Co-ordinator Gwen Mitchell and Registrar Ken Shields for their advice and support over the last year. They have also been regular attendees at our local JP social events.

Speaking of the above, I need to thank the good people at the Charles Upham Retirement Complex for their help and generous support this year for providing us a grand venue and morning teas.

Also, with this year being election year, April Lander and I were JPs assigned to each of 2 teams of election officers who went around the rest homes of North Canterbury taking advance voting. We met some very interesting and lovely people during that experience.

Well, we’re on the cusp of the last month of the year, with rosters already in place for December and the first two months of 2021. It’s the time of the year to make sure that the library has booked us for consecutive Tuesdays for the whole of next year in the office we use and to order new 2021 parking permits for each of us on roster from the local Council. Done!

Being the start of the Festive month of December, could I impart a bit of history to you. It’s all around the ubiquitous Christmas card! Here’s its story:

The first recorded Christmas cards were sent by Michael Maier to King James 1 of England and his son Henry Fredrick, Prince of Wales in 1611.

The next cards were commissioned by Sir Henry Cole and illustrated by John Callcott-Horsley in London on the 1st May 1843.

Early British cards rarely showed winter or religious themes, instead favouring flowers, fairies and other fanciful designs that reminded the recipient of the approach of spring. Humorous and sentimental images of children and animals were popular as Victorian scenes. Well, that’s as the story goes.....these days most of them are printed in China!

Oh, before I go, we have two social functions yet to come for the end of this year. Saturday 28th November at Somerset on Cavendish Road, Christchurch between 10 and 11.30am and our local Rangiora yuletide get together on Wednesday 9th December between 10 and midday at Charles Upham.

Meri Kirihimete

Halswell by our recently retired Justice coordinator Barry Straight
Who would have thought 5 years ago that we would have our own designated space in the newly built library and Service Centre and the Halswell suburb people would have a regular designated time in which to have JP services on call for all of their needs.

A dedicated group of 6 JP’s have and were rostered on in rotation and never let the team down and the positive comments I had from Library staff and the general public were very pleasing.

The variation in tasks requested by clients were very wide and varied and all JP’s found that the variety of tasks presented to them made each session a very good training session and certainly had us all referring to our manuals to ensure that correct procedures were followed.

We also found that nearly every customer was delighted with the service and through word of mouth spread the good word and how to contact when necessary

The number of clients we saw varied a little but ranged from about 20 to 35 each per Tuesday session. As is the norm it was feast or famine when people came in and the slowest transactions always seemed to be at the front of the queue and we also seemed to get a long transaction just as we were packing up to leave. Growth within our area will result in increasing numbers through next year so we will be monitoring in case we have to increase staffing.

The horrible word “Covid 19” messed up the year but thanks go out to our group and all other stations who kept the flag flying during this horrible time.

Our thanks also to the Library staff who were extremely helpful.

And a few lines from our new Halswell coordinator Ray Pearson....Well not a great deal for me to say except the team are ticking along nicely.

Halswell library opened on 28/11/2015 and our service desk commenced on 19/01/2016 with Barry as coordinator until retiring just recently.

With Barry and Jillian Wadsworth retiring and Ken Sowden moving to our Bishopdale desk (closer to his work) we urgently need another three Justices to help us please. Contact me, Ray Pearson if you can help us out email: rwpearson123@gmail.com or ring 03 929 0434. Alternatively contact Gwen on 0274 589 178 email: clareview3@xtra.co.nz

Lincoln by Tony Gemmill
Merry Xmas from the Service Desk team at Lincoln. Actually our team comprises just a few JP’s from Lincoln with the majority from surrounding areas.  The significant issue for 2020 has, of course, been in the impact of Covid-19. In our case this has resulted in the absence of the majority of overseas students attending Lincoln University. While there has been a related decrease in JP activity we will now look to reducing our duty temporarily from 3 hours to 2 hours. The continuing growth in development in the Selwyn area will however require us to monitor our needs carefully.

The team members are all very co-operative and flexible and I look forward to working with these folk in the New Year.

Amberley by Isobel Whyte
We are probably the smallest of the service desks but we have a loyal base of about six who diligently turn up when rostered on a Friday. Some travel quite a distance to ensure our slotted time at the Amberley library is “manned” and this is greatly appreciated.

New JP’s joined the team this year and we have some who have had a “roster holiday” due to ill health. Anybody who has changed circumstances and can now re-join our roster will be welcomed.

Like the other service desks we have had a variety of forms which is good and welcome.

Upper Riccarton by Bob Macgregor
During the past twelve months we, like the rest of New Zealand and the world, have been disrupted by “the virus” but when able we were able to look after the needs and wants of the population in our area – normally between 30 and 40 clients each Tuesday.

We have a very good knowledgeable and reliable team at Upper Riccarton – they are Neville Brown, Siew Ngor Chen, Cheryl Colley, Harry Friedel, Graeme Gardiner, Tom Gregg, Cheryl Hill, Errold Paynter, Rosemary Mannering and Bob Macgregor.

The team acknowledges and appreciates the cooperation and assistance we receive from the Management and staff at the Upper Riccarton library.

Darfield by Di Woodward
Darfield Service desk started 2020 like all service desks up and down the country assisting the people in our communities with all things required of a JP.  That was until March.  Something called a Coronavirus later to be dubbed Covid-19 hit the world with a bang. For those of us here in New Zealand the term “lockdown” became the norm. Some coped ok, some didn’t. One of my team, like many, found it a time for trying new recipes in the kitchen, reading and gardening.  Most of all though it was a time when we were unable to help those in need.
A good percentage of my team are also over that magic number, 70.....which made it doubly hard.

We must be thankful that we live in a country that has taken this pandemic seriously. A huge thank you to all the special services who have made this possible. Family bubbles, neighbours helping out, service groups phoning the elderly and vunerable and the sacrifice from medical teams has been amazing.

We have finished off our year with a fully functional service desk and look forward to the privilege this has become as 2021 looms closer.

Bishopdale by Jean Taylor
We have two Justices on duty each Wednesday from 10 am to 1 pm. There is a great need for the service in the community and we still have queues from time to time.

This year like every other desk it has been a “roller coaster” in and out of lockdown. I would like to thank the amazing team for their individual commitment and resilience to the disruption due to Covid. I am pleased that the CJPA has formed a policy which we can clearly follow should we need to temporarily withdraw the service at any time.

From the full months we have been on duty the average number of clients per month is 180.
It is interesting to note in January and February 2020 the client numbers were 218 and 214 respectively. Covid may be reason these numbers are now reduced.

Our situation at Bishopdale library is perfect with two separate rooms, both spacious and light providing excellent privacy for our clients. It is also an excellent environment for any newly appointed Justice to “sit in” to gain experience and gain confidence to perform their duties. I welcome any to contact me if they wish to do that.

The team at Bishopdale, like other desks is continually changing with some leaving and others joining, fifteen Justices serve; of which five have been with us from the commencement of the desk in 2017. They are a willing group of people and it is my pleasure to work with them.

Oxford by Wendy Doody
What a mixed-up year we have had and I would personally like to thank the Justices of the Peace members who have put themselves out to help others during the lockdown period.

Oxford service desk started with six Justices of the Peace helping, four from Oxford and two from Cust; we have now reduced to five members due to ill health of one of our members who has served for more than 30 years as a JP.

I very much appreciate how all five have given up a Thursday to help out at the desk and also to assist when one was unable to do their duty.

Sadly, Robin Frahm JP passed away recently and he had served for nearly 40 years as a Justice of Peace. 

Merry Christmas to all and hopefully 2021 will be much kinder to us.

Parklands by April Lander
The Parklands service desk has two Justices on duty every Friday 12 noon – 2.00 pm.

This small team of Justices provide friendly, top-notch service in the warm and inviting Parklands Library. These Justices are exceptionally quick to step in if another Justices has a change in circumstances and isn’t available for duty.

Kaiapoi by Neill Price
In regards to Year 2020 this has been very frustrating with the Virus affecting all our lives and activities.

It is to the credit of “The Team” we have been able to meet the needs of our Community and beyond, both at the Clinic and in our homes.
During the year in review we lost the services of Takayoshi Kamiya who returned to Japan and Lenore Barrow who retired as a Justice. The Kaiapoi team looks forward with confidence to an exciting year in 2021.

Shirley by Rod Paton
We currently have eleven competent and dedicated Justices on our team. We all take a great pride in the service we provide to the community.

Our team consists of:- Kevin Clarkson, Garth Dale, Carolyn Livingston, Ian McWhinnie, Rod Miller, Brent Philip, John Sutherland, Carolyn Tapley, Dave Theyers, Sally Thompson and Rod Paton.
(Some of our team also work on other service desks)

We welcome Jenny Townsend who will be joining our team in the New Year.  Jenny is a relatively new Justice who expressed interest in joining us after “sitting in” on several of our service desk sessions to gain practical experience.

In accordance with CJPA policy all our Justices are accredited.

Our desk operates on Tuesdays from 10 am to 1 pm in the Shirley library at the Palms Mall, where we deal with a wide variety of work. The library has recently been refurbished and our work area is spacious and pleasant to work in. We are grateful for the support given to us by the library staff.

We always schedule two Justices at a time which is most beneficial to both Justices and clients.

We welcome newly appointed Justices who would like to “sit in” at our sessions to observe the process in action. This is the best education that a new Justice can receive.
(To arrange this please contact either our Convenor of Service desks, Gwen Mitchell 0274 589 178 or myself Rod Paton 027 222 0149).

Sumner Service Desk by Lance
Kia Ora koutou from the Sumner crew of Karen, Tom, John, Neil, Glennis, Barrie, Lance and Nicola who have had a mixed year with our overall numbers each Saturday reduced down, with Fendalton opening last year.   This has meant we  actually have time to talk to the clients, going from 60+ clients (for one JP) down to 12-18 clients, over the 2 hours.   

A big welcome to Karen, who joined the team this year after returning to Christchurch.  She is very keen and willing to support the desk going forward.  Our group has also been ably supported by the library staff throughout the year, setting up the area in advance of opening and assisting where necessary.  

I was on the last desk for 2020 (Sat 19th) and was able to thank Tomo Shibata, Associate Team Leader of the Matuku Takotako - Sumner Library Team.  He has been our liaison since I started on the desk and has finally decided to move on to other opportunities.  I thank him personally, and on behalf of our team, for his support and that of his own team every Saturday.  

We have also had a couple of injuries, reducing our available JPs but the team will still have completed in excess of 3500 minutes of community service by the end of the year. All the best wishes for a speedy recovery and return to the desk, when you can .... but not before. Stay safe.

Thank you to all the team, for your support in keeping the desk operational and willingness to provide the community service on your Saturday morning.   Ngā mihi. Lance.