Remember a few weeks back when the Christchurch City Council’s economic development and tourism agency, ChristchurchNZ, was in the gun for trying to re-brand the city?

Instead of Christchurch being the Garden City it wanted it to be the “City of Play”. But then the head of ChristchurchNZ got in touch and said it wasn’t the City of Play they wanted - it was “City of Balance”. And then went on to say the idea was that no one would actually say it.

It would just be inferred. And she talked about the City of Balance being a place where you can get everything in proportion and live the dream. A balanced life.

Well, ChristchurchNZ have to be congratulated because they’re not only talking the talk - they’re walking the walk. With the news today that they’ve been spending ratepayer money on massages, yoga and meditation classes for some of its staff. And I’m not being sarcastic there, either. I mean it.

The city council agency says it can’t compete with the private sector on pay so it had a wellness workshop at an outfit that exists to “bring people back to equilibrium”. Which sounds to me like they’re a perfect match for the crowd pushing this idea of “City of Balance”.

A balanced life. Massage, yoga and meditation. Perfect match.

And when I read the headline in the news about this this morning, I could see it was one of those headlines that I was supposed to be outraged by.

This is what it says: “ChristchurchNZ staff get yoga, massage for working long hours”. And what the headline writer obviously wanted me to think was “my bloody rates money being spent on a bunch of muppets who think they deserve special treatment because they work long hours”.

That’s how I’m supposed to be reacting to that headline. In fact, the headline writer probably wanted me to go further than that and start going on about the crew at ChristchurchNZ being a bunch of pen pushers who wouldn’t know a day’s work if it hit them in the face.

That’s how the headline writer wanted you to react too. You see it all the time. “You need to be outraged about this”.

But guess what? I’m not outraged. You might be. But I’m not.

So what happened, is a bunch of people from ChristchurchNZ went to a workshop called “Setting Ourselves Up for Success”, which was all about wellness and managing stress. That’s why massage, yoga and meditation was involved.

And this happened just after the SailGP yacht-racing event at Lyttelton - which was absolutely brilliant - and just before the big TRENZ tourism conference.

So the crew at ChristchurchNZ had been going flat-tack working on those massive projects and the agency thought it would be good to put something on for them. They’d been doing a lot of night time and weekend work on top of their usual workloads.

And so they took 21 people off to this workshop which was all about getting tips on how to manage stress and look after their wellbeing. They got lunch and a session in a massage chair.

All up it cost diddly squat. Just under $6,500. As a ratepayer myself, I’m more than happy with it. I know that when I pay my rates, a bunch of people from ChristchurchNZ getting a few tips on how to look after themselves and sitting in a massage chair is not where I imagine my money going. But so what?

And there may even be other people who work at the city council who deserve to be going off to a wellness workshop too.

As the council’s been saying recently, the amount of abuse their people have been copping has gone through the roof. Which is why they’re running a campaign to make us aware of what’s going on and how there are some awful people who think they can say what they want to council staff.

So some of them probably need some wellness tips too. And if the council wants to spend ratepayer money doing it - then go for it I say.

But today, I’m standing up and congratulating ChristchurchNZ for its proactive approach to looking after its people.

For a couple of reasons: 1. If spending this tiny amount of money encourages someone to stay at ChristchchurchNZ, then it’s a lot cheaper than finding someone else to take over their job. And 2. (and more importantly, in my view), this is about treating staff like the real people they are. And that is why I’m saying ChristchurchNZ, stand-up and take a bow.