DIRT - Disaster Innovation Research and Teaching

DIRT - Disaster Innovation Research and Teaching DIRT is about building community resilience and based at the Vogelmorn Bowling Club.

We are working to bring people together and get prepared to help themselves and their neighbours in an earthquake, extreme weather or other major disruptive event.

We have two events this month, on the 17th and 24th 4-6pm at Vogelmorn. We are looking at how we responded to the recen...
07/05/2026

We have two events this month, on the 17th and 24th 4-6pm at Vogelmorn. We are looking at how we responded to the recent flooding in our community and what we can learn for the future. On the 17th we'll be running through some activities around this ahead of being filmed on the 24th for a TVNZ documentary about New Zealanders 'prepping' in various ways.

Come along on the 17th if you want to be part of the filming on the 24th!

DIRT #18 - Making more of what we've gotIt's time for another DIRT event and this one couldn't be more relevant when t...
14/04/2026

DIRT #18 - Making more of what we've got

It's time for another DIRT event and this one couldn't be more relevant when the news is all about disruption and restriction of oil and other resources. Note the eariler date - 19th April this month.

We have the amazing Ira Bailey, founder of Coshop talking food resilience this month - couldn't be more relevant! Come a...
23/03/2026

We have the amazing Ira Bailey, founder of Coshop talking food resilience this month - couldn't be more relevant!

Come along and hear his vision for locally sourced and distributed food, how we might get involved and then we'll make and share some food cooked with fire from wood gathered from the neighbourhood.

Well, it's been a wild lead up to our first DIRT event for 2026 - come along and hear Eleanor share what's she's learnin...
19/02/2026

Well, it's been a wild lead up to our first DIRT event for 2026 - come along and hear Eleanor share what's she's learning about the range of people 'prepping' in Aotearoa. Come along, learn and meet people in your neighbourhood who are working together to be better prepared for wild weather and other disruptive events.

Our final DIRT event of 2025, #15 looks at communicating confidence - not just the technical stuff, but how we build on...
24/11/2025

Our final DIRT event of 2025, #15 looks at communicating confidence - not just the technical stuff, but how we build on our group's capabilities to be able to help each other and our community.

We are a meeting bit earlier this month on the 19th (the last Sunday being part of Labour weekend), to talk about our ex...
13/10/2025

We are a meeting bit earlier this month on the 19th (the last Sunday being part of Labour weekend), to talk about our exciting new container, what we should have in it and how that can help our community should disaster happen. Come and see the progress!!

06/10/2025

Here's Chris Berthelsen talking about Japan's Moonshot 8 goal of reducing extreme weather impacts on their country - sounds sci-fi but has very real and interesting implications and opens up some huge questions around the sky being a 'commons'.

A recording glitch on the day means not the best video sorry.

Another month races by which means another DIRT event coming fast - #13 has Paige Koedijk talking zombies and exploring...
19/09/2025

Another month races by which means another DIRT event coming fast - #13 has Paige Koedijk talking zombies and exploring the mātauranga Māori principle of whakawhanaungatanga in disaster situations. This promises to be fun, surprising and informative.

03/09/2025

Here's the fantastic talk from DIRT #9 back in May about the disruption that could come from losing the interisland ferry service - sorry for the delay in getting this up, I'll blame it getting lost in 'the cloud' but it's probably just user error.

At DIRT #11 we made this epic list of 'disasters' by working through the alphabet and putting down everything we could ...
15/08/2025

At DIRT #11 we made this epic list of 'disasters' by working through the alphabet and putting down everything we could think of - which really helps thinking about "what is a disaster?"

Our 117 disasters covered the obvious like earthquakes and storms through to perhaps less obvious like ocean current disruption and the hard letters to fill like K - kangaroo attacks and killer bees (though even this can be sensibly related to invasive or harmful species coming into an area due to climate change and Fengue fever or Lyme Disease being a real issue).

We had the suggestion that a disaster is a "Significant disruption to: Food ,Shelter, Potable water, News/Radio/TV, Medicine + equipment e.g. scans, Power, Internet/Cellular network, Sewage disposal, Social contact, community , Entertainment - books, video, music , Mobility - roads/vehicles/public transport, Exercise - sport, running/walking"

Which then got discussed in terms of timing; does a disaster have to be sudden? Is ability to adapt a critical component of something having disastrous impact?

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Brooklyn
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