Kiwi, RODALCO and Paulusgnome.

Hope you've got all your forms filled out.
Once in every 4 years.
Don't lie now.
Is it my imagination or was the last census anonymous?.
Lots more probing questions this time around.
I'm a Chinese/Maori Tranny this time around.
{Just kidding}

Mike, we got them but to be honest I haven't sat at the table to fill them in yet.
I spend too much time on the internet.

Although I will do my duty as a honest citizen and will fill them in.

Ray,
Good on ya mate!.

Oh and by the way,
Chris Price and I are checking houses for smoke alarms.
We are Census form collectors.
Whoever loses cooks dinner for the whole Brigade.
I hope I don't lose.
Keep you posted.

Mike, we have done ours.

Misses done 2, I did 2 + 1 for the house.

Cheers Ray

Nothing about our Firebrigades in there !!

Trumpy, the census isn't a headcount anymore but more of a marketing information gathering exercise. Interesting to know how much money Statistics NZ makes from selling the information.

One question in the census asked us to name the company we work for ! How is that relevant?

We need to question the legitimacy of the census before we are legally required to fill in a breakfast cereal questionaire every morning.

Blast!,
I got 1683 houses with Smoke Alarms.
Chris got 1721.
Chris said that either way we would be working in the same kitchen.
Just means that he is in charge of me.
Chris is a Chef by Trade, I'm thanking God that that he isn't like Gordon Ramsay.
But my God can he turn out some good stuff.
Fire safety won in the end.
I lost because quite a few people never had batteries in thier alarms.
Yeah OK, I lost fair and square.

Good Work Trumpy, smoke detectors are the most important appliance in the home. Keep spreading the word Brother.

You & your mate Chris checked over 3300 homes ? Did you check every house three times ? I didn't think there was that many houses down there in Ash-Vegas Surprisingly high number of homes without SDs though.

The latest news on SDs now is that its better to have one in every bedroom so that it will wake you up in a fire. There was a documentary on TV with a people sleeping through a beeping SD. Sounds logical to me What do you reckon ?

Of course there's that many houses Kiwi!
Handy things censuses, you can do all sorts with a few official stats off the Net.
At the 2001 census, Ash-Vegas had a population of 25,446. There were just over 10,000 households, each having an average 2.4 residents. No stat.s in the 2001 census on smoke alarms, unfortunately, but now at least we know 3404 of them have got batteries.
The data is now 5 years out of date, as the 2006 census forms were only collected on Wednesday. I expect the figures are a bit higher now.

Gosh ! 25,000 Ash-Vegans. Thats way more than I thought. And I've been to Ash-Vegas heaps.

They have a few good websites for Ashburton, the local 'Guardian' Newspaper online, and the Council site where I saw the 2001 census data, amongst others. There seem to be an awful lot of fires reported; houses, barns, fields, vehicles etc., especially farmers burning off tree-trimmings in high winds just lately. Mike, you must be rushed off your feet- it's a wonder there's anything left standing, but then, they don't start a town name with 'Ash' for nothing!!
Ain't had a good blaze here since I tried to speed up the setting of a yup of polyurethane foam with a blowlamp! We ain't all locked up yet, shipmates!

Alan

I can imagine the infamous Nor'wester wind pattern makes fire-fighting in Ashburton a very tough job.

Ashburton is a very dry place with lots of wooden houses. No wonder they get their fair share of fires.

There has been a bit of a problem here lately with farmers starting fires by doing burn-offs in risky weather conditions. Probably the same farmers who irrigate on hot windy afternoons ! Fine em I say !