Sincere thanks to all our coordinators and Justices working on our 18 service desks

Service Desk report 2019/2020 by Gwen Mitchell      

From 01 September 2019 to 31 August 2020 our 18 desks have provided:

• 2,456 hours of service
• seen 17,761 clients

and completed:

• 44,612 certified copies
• 7,808 statutory declarations
• 709 affidavits
• 2,311 other documents

Amazing and impressive statistics which show how appreciated and utilised our service desks are. Our desks would not run smoothly without our desk coordinators and Justices .....thank you.

We also thank CCC libraries who host service desks, enabling us to provide a walk in- walk out service in a warm, friendly, safe environment. Our partnership with the libraries has never been stronger.

It has been a challenging year with Covid-19 and our desks were suspended for quite a few weeks.  Remarkably we still saw 2,289 more clients than in the previous year. The CJPA Council policy drafted in August 2020 stating “service desks would only operate during Covid level one” made it easy to understand when our desks would be operating.

Three of our service desk coordinators have stepped down over the last twelve months......Stan Hackwell from Rangiora, Lenore Barrow from Kaiapoi and Barry Straight from Halswell. Sincere thanks Stan, Lenore and Barry for all your work over the years coordinating these desks.

We were delighted to have Neil Falconer take over as coordinator of Rangiora, welcomed Neill Price as coordinator of Kaiapoi, Ray Pearson as coordinator of Halswell and appreciated April Lander becoming coordinator of Parklands. Sincere thanks for taking these roles on.

The council has provided another stamp for certifying electronic documents this year. That makes a total of four stamps in our JP satchels at each desk. Four Bibles have also been donated. One went to each of the three Waimakariri desks and the other one is in the Lincoln satchel. We hope to get more and will slowly distribute them.

This year has seen a number of new Justices sitting in on our service desks (needs to be arranged beforehand) and this provides a wonderful opportunity to buddy up with an experienced Justice and witness first hand the range of work we handle. Often these new Justices will join one of our desks which helps us tremendously to maintain our service desk Justice numbers.  We also ask that all Justices working on our desks be accredited which shows we are all keeping up with our education so we can provide the best, possible service.

When I took over as Convenor in 2016 there were 10 service desks operating only on Tuesdays.   Council made the decision that any future desks opened would be on alternative days. Since then another 8 desks have been added and we have changed Fendalton to a Saturday.   Rolleston operates two days a week which means we have 10 desks out of the 18 operating in Canterbury on alternative days to a Tuesday.

Attached is a list of our current service desks showing days and times they operate. If you would like to join one of our teams or be on a standby list to occasionally fill in, please contact me or the coordinator of the desk directly.  A warm welcome awaits you.

Gwen Mitchell
CJPA Service Desks Convener
0274 589 178
clareview3@xtra.co.nz