Our speaker on Tuesday 25th September was Simon Woolf, photographer and Wellington City Councillor.
In his role on Wellington City Council Simon is also a member of the Long-term and Annual Plan Committee, and chair of the Council Controlled Organisations Subcommittee. As Portfolio leader Simon has responsibilities as Wellington Ambassador Tourism, Small Business (joint), Sport, and is the Alternate Councillor Representative on the Youth Council.
Simon gave us an overview of how he came as a reluctant Councillor initially. Now in his second term, after 83 years of experience and baggage left at the last election, he was much happier in his role as Councillor. He has been seeking for a system of qualified mediation rather than litigation on local government and was more of a backroom person he never sought the limelight of the media. Especially enjoys his City Ambassador role as he gets to show visitors to Wellington around Wellington. His main interests were in the youth and the senior citizens. Simon said that our Youth Council is best practice, and provides power to the youth to unleash them. Youth are not just for the future they are for the now. In relation to aged persons, Simon mentioned that they had so much experienced that is underutilised, often taken for granted and seen as not useful. 
Simon responded to questions on a various transport issues, and local government being a-political.
In earlier days Simon was a football referee and still has an interest in this, but his main interest is in his photography business, Woolf Photography, which was originally started when his father bought in 1960 an established studio in Wellington. Photography as an occupation, art form and passion is something very special to Simon. He has a particular interest in nature and wild life photography and is enamoured with the Wellington harbour and Wellington south coast area. He also continues to have an interest in portraits and baby photos, and photography as art, with an interest in the expression of movement. Photos showed to the meeting included shots of the great white heron (kotuku), NZ falcon (kārearea) which he described as very intelligent, whales in the harbour, Winston Peters, and his most viewed photograph is of Kate and George.
In response to questions Simon said that he was a fully digital camera photographer, with most of his art taken as from the camera. He also does quite an amount of his photography from a smartphone camera. The only modifiers he sometimes uses were, Google Snapseed and Next photographers plug-in.