Next week the Impact House, Tāiki e turns one year old. In just one year, it’s fair to say that Renay Charteris, Cain Kerehoma and their ever-growing crew have achieved their goal of kickstarting an aroha economy here in the Tairāwhiti. Their aims around creating a collaborative space for social and environmental action have drawn in a hugely diverse group of people to the premises on the corner of Treble Court. Amongst the people using and contributing towards the space are a mushroom farmer, a death doula, a tourism operator, innovators and an artist, people in data analytics, social media, tech, the youth space, Te Reo, podcasting and permaculture. Renay reckons they’ve become a UN of sorts too “We seem to be a bit of a landing pad for new people arriving in our community, who want to get involved but don’t know how”. She says that getting them involved in projects that benefit the region is the best way to introduce people to our community, allowing them to integrate into the fabric of the community through service and giving of their time, skills and selves. Next week is Global Entrepreneurship Week, and the programme that the Tāiki e! Crew have planned is a beautiful fit for the mahi they do, bringing together the key focus areas that have organically bubbled up amongst their members since they started one year ago. When it comes to entrepreneurship, Cain and Renay urge people to think about how business can be used as a tool to create impact and transformational change in our communities, so that it is about more than just making a profit. So next week the hive of activity that is Tāiki e! kicks off with an Open Day for people who want to get a sense of what goes on there and how it rolls, a Side Hustle Market, Self Care & Well-Being in Business session and a Start Up Crawl through the CBD, talking to some local business owners about their start up stories. Stuffed Up Night aims to provide a space within which to talk about failure and Fishbowl is an event to talk Food and Food Security here in the Tairāwhiti. As Renay says ‘Your vibe attracts your tribe’ so if this vibe sounds like a bit of you, check out Tāiki e!’s schedule of events for next week, and meet your tribe!

Why did the Pizzeria cross the Road? Well, in the case of the Neighborhood Pizzeria - it was to get to the other side. As of Labour Weekend the Neighborhood Pizzeria crew have gone from cooking pizzas in a shipping container, where they often faced crazy-making temperatures and only narrowly avoiding melting as concerned customers looked on closely, to restoring an old favourite haunt for many locals, formerly known as Cafe Villagio, just over the road in the Ballance Street Village. In many ways, crossing the road has also been a case of coming full circle for owner Marcel Campbell. Thirty years ago Anna Walker took on the task of transforming an old Stucco home into what has been known since as Cafe Villagio. Framed photos on the wall of the new fit-out tell the story of the group of village locals that gathered around to help Anna realise her vision for the original reincarnation of the space. At the time Marcel’s dad, Nigel Campbell’s pharmacy was next door where the bookshop is now, so Marcel’s family were amongst that crew of helpers. These past couple of weeks, “by the magic of Gizzy” as Marcel puts it, many of those original helpers including Anna Walker were back in there helping Marcel and his team get it all ready for its Labour Weekend Opening. Marcel also served an apprenticeship of sorts when he worked as a waiter for sister Amy and brother in-law Dave when they owned Cafe Villagio some 13 years or so ago, so after being in the Bay of Plenty for a few years, this is as much a revisitation of the past as it is a new start for Marcel. That interplay between the past and these new beginnings was clearly front of mind when I sat down with Marcel just 48 hours before Opening Night. Marcel likened the imminent Opening of the new and improved Neighborhood Pizzeria experience to the first few days at school, “The first couple of days don’t actually go that well” he said, remembering his first day at Central School, just a hop skip and jump down the road. He recalls not wanting to go; the anxiety of meeting other people’s expectations, and likened that to how he was feeling about the week ahead: “Everyone wants it to be amazing, they want it to be good, and I think it’s going to be - we’ve just got to get through this first couple of weeks or so.” When we spoke, Marcel wasn’t even sure whether they were going to be able to open that week “that’s how Gizzy it is” with the pizza oven - an Italian Stallion - requiring more juice than a residentially wired building can provide. Ultimately though, it’s clear to Marcel, his team and all of the salivating locals that had been counting down the minutes until our new Local opened its doors, that the ingredients for a good time are all present and accounted for.. Take a simple base of pizza, a great wine list, Sunshine Brewery on tap and an outdoor area with Gisborne sunshine and plenty of room for the kids to tear about. Add your toppings of choice: Sunday sessions in the courtyard, art on the walls, sexy lighting, dining beneath the stars, after-work drinks, cocktails, a fire pit, old friends, new friends, local yokels and you have the new and improved Neighbourhood Pizzeria experience, which is nothing short of good times. As one of the locals whose path home passes directly alongside the new and improved Neighborhood Pizzeria, I fear for the waistlines of myself and my family, knowing how favourably the prospect of pizza, beer and impromptu fun are going to stack up against the gruelling daily reality of having to figure out what to cook for dinner on any given night. However as was discussed on a balmy and buzzing evening at the Pizzeria last week, those ample waistlines are going to be more than compensated for by the kinds of community-building goodness that is set to go down at this new local hang out that we’ve all been hanging out for. Thanks Neighbourhood Pizzeria for filling the gap X Words by Sarah Cleave Photographs X Tom Teutenberg. Keep up with the pizza & cocktail of the week at @neighborhoodpizzeria on Facebook & the Insta.

I recently resigned from my job to look after my mental health. Just a few hours later I found myself sitting next to Sarah from Gizzy Local and somehow, in a brief kōrero, we shared honesty and understanding around mental health. After I left my job I thought life was going to get better, and then even better. But that’s not always how the story goes. I remember lying in bed, feeling physically incapable of getting up. I wondered how much water I needed, to replace the stuff streaming from my eyes. I felt groggy drunk with shame and inadequacy. The work I’d left was not easy by anyone's standards, but the incredible people around me were sticking it out, with far busier lives and way more on their plate than me, so why couldn’t I? I slid a prescription across the pharmacy counter and felt like I’d failed. Having spent the last 10 years managing my mental health without medication — through exercise, meditation, creativity and mindset education — here I was. Antidepressants can take up to 4 weeks to work. Yikes. It sounded like a very long time. Back in bed, popping my first pill, I read through the long list of potential side-effects like it was the menu at a really bad restaurant. Insomnia was the special of the day, with a side of nausea and dizziness. Slamming the door shut to the one place I could escape to, I spent 4 nights owl-eyed in bed while venlafaxine tried to rally the sad and sluggish neurotransmitters in my brain. Telling my flatmates (puffy eyed and wearing a dressing gown) that ‘I’ll return as a butterfly!’, I drove non-stop to Wellington to cocoon away with whānau and be looked after while adjusting to the medication. I manifested a transformation. It took longer than expected and I kept thinking “next week I’ll find work and get myself back together.” It didn’t feel true even as I said it. My body and mind demanded stillness and patience while wings formed beneath my skin. It was a few weeks before I noticed they were there and longer still for them to unfurl. Now I’m a full-time artist pumping things out on social media as I take on an art challenge for the last 100 days of my twenties. It all looks very “go-get-it-girl!” and it’s nice to feel and share the excitement. It also feels important to share my humanness and be authentic. The project was born from a vulnerable and challenging place. I’ve bounced back with a resiliency owed to mental health education, financial security, family support and no dependants. When I think of those among us who live with depression while managing things like poverty, family violence, drug or alcohol abuse and the responsibility of looking after kids or the elderly, I recognise the incredible strength in our community and how many unsung courageous individuals we have here. One day, I’d like to be as comfortable telling my boss I need a day off for my mental health, as I would telling them that I have a cold. One of the top 5 leading causes of death In Aotearoa is people taking their own lives and yet we are still not in a place where taking “mental health days” is encouraged, normalised or fully accepted. Are we okay with that? Sharing our stories and strategies helps reduce shame and shows how common but complicated mental illness is. Checking in on each other, normalising kōrero about mental illness and encouraging healthy social catch-ups (e.g. a hīkoi up Titirangi instead of a beer) are all ways that we can make a change. It’s no fun being swallowed up, but when the black dog spits you out, you might just catch the wave of your life. Words & Moving Images by Stephanie Barnett. Photograph X Ellen Taylor Find more of Steph’s work on Instagram @ stephmarybarnett / www.facebook.com/steph.barnett.77 Photograph @ellenmarytaylor

Now that we’ve all got a few early nights under our belts, it feels like a good time to reflect on the second year of Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival. Each edition has been deeply influenced by the circumstances of the year in which they were held. Last year the inaugural Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival coincided with Tuia 250 and as Tama Waipara noted, “everybody was exhausted. Iwi were getting up every morning to stand up kaupapa across the district” and emotion was high. The Festival was brand new, the tickets were cheap, and between Tuia 250 and the Festival there was a lot going on. This year Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival coincided delightfully with a return to Level 1 - a turn of phrase that wouldn’t have meant a thing to anyone a year ago. In this year so utterly defined by the Covid-19 Pandemic, TTAF 2020 in Level 1 offered the perfect excuse for us all to re-emerge and reconnect. Tama reflected on the “presence of uplift” as people came out and “reclaimed space after a period of anxiety, fear and worry with lockdown”. * * * You will not find an arts festival like Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival anywhere else in the country, as it is by its very definition ‘of this place’. Firmly rooted in Tangatawhenuatanga, it is place-based and comes from the knowledge that we are all culturally located. It is a space that has been claimed for our stories, in our voices, for our people. I have enjoyed the aspects of continuity from 2019 to 2020. Just as the Festival itself has settled into its own bones, so too has Te Ara I Whiti grown into itself, this year bringing the riverbank alive with barefoot kids in pyjamas and parents jogging to keep up. It was cool to be able to wander amongst the light installations and sculptures and be able to guess at the artists behind the works, knowing that through this platform and over time, the expressions of our artists become a recognisable and familiar part of our story. It has been awesome to see in ourselves a community which can and does engage with the arts, which shows up to theatres and other venues in droves, steps up and interacts as active participant when asked to do so; a community that floods our eateries and bars before and after events, who can and do bring our CBD to life when the goods are there on offer. It has been heartening to both observe and experience the flow-on effect of inspiration - the inspiration derived from bearing witness to, or experiencing the creative expression of another, especially when that creative expression comes from someone who looks or sounds like you, who lives in the same part of town as you, or who you might recognise from the farmer’s market. I look forward to seeing who is compelled to add their voice to the Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival stable in the future after experiencing what they have in this year’s offerings. Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival will be a potent force for many many years to come, in helping our community find its voice; its many voices, offering us the opportunity to understand ourselves and each other better. Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival also offers an important platform for our creatives, laying down the challenge, ‘What is your expression of this place, your place and your people, in these times? What will you add to this story?’ Words Sarah Cleave Photographs X Tom Teutenberg

Last year the production ‘All Roads lead to Ngatapa’ by the Rongowhakaata Iwi Trust played to packed houses around the East Coast in the inaugural Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival, and I imagine their follow-up production Tūranga: The Land of Milk and Honey will do the same. ‘Tūranga: The Land of Milk and Honey’ might be described as a contemporised version of ‘All Roads lead to Ngatapa’ with a new chapter and some slam poetry, audio visual components, puppetry, dance, mixed media and youth voices all added into the mix. It carries the weighty description as a piece of theatre aiming to propel our society into an equitable future. “Te Tairāwhiti Arts Festival - here’s a platform, we’re all artists, we’ve all got stories to tell, let’s learn about each other” Teina Moetara When the team first got together in August last year, there were no preconceptions as to what they were setting out to create. What they did know was the Tuia250 commemorations that were about to take place all around the country, had presented them with a task. The task, producer Francis Hare says, was to present another side to the dominant narrative of this country’s history. The story of the Rongowhakaata Iwi is not well known, except perhaps for certain bits that involve their ancestor, Te Kooti. Moreover, or perhaps because of that, as Director Teina Moetara puts it “we’re an iwi that often comes out as a bit contentious or with a bit of punch” so the group knew that in presenting their side of the story they would need to create something a little bit different, and approach it in a different way. Teina describes the contradicting, conflicting narratives that besiege every so-called history as both “the power and the beauty of it all”, which seems to me an incredibly gracious starting point for this task they had faced themselves with. Nevertheless the paramount consideration for all who were to be involved in this sharing of Rongowhakaata’s story was that “people would walk out from the experience with their mana intact”, including themselves. “It was a chance for us to share our story from our perspective. History has been told to us from another perspective and some things have been left out. They are heavy stories, but they’re beautiful stories as well” Marcia Akroyd While the Arts are intricately woven into the whakapapa of Rongowhakaata, the group’s quest to find a different way to tell their story led them to the very ‘English’ medium of theatre. Within this new medium however, the group utilised the ‘devised process’ - a process as old as Theatre itself, which describes a way of working, which is collaborative and improvisatory, and which Teina describes as aligning very closely to “the way we work on the Marae.” “As artists with our whakapapa in the arts, it’s all about the process - not just the content” Teina Moetara. In talking to all of the different members of the crew, it becomes clear that this approach to creating the works has been huge, providing both the starting point - the space from which different members of the group can speak their own truth - as well as the end point - allowing the resulting production to come together in a way that “people will walk out inspired and empowered, rather than belittled and scared by the history that we have learnt before now” The cast describe the process as enabling them to find greater meaning in what they create, because “so much more of ourselves has gone into the making process”. Actor Rahera Taukamo-Bidois describes having to prepare herself each morning to find the growth or learning in whatever will occur that day. She describes the process as “a Māori way of making”, where everything is done as a group, through wānanga, co-creating and making. “Whatever we make, whether it lands or not, may have triggered something in someone else - everything is a stepping stone. You have to be brave and build your confidence in yourself, even if you think something is dumb, you still offer it up, because it might draw something out of someone else” Marcia Akroyd Raiha Te Ata Hapara Moetara, another member of the cast, talks about the “intense moments” but mostly about returning to the room after those intense moments, “the work is juicy” she says, “it’s mean to watch, it tests and challenges you so much”. The upshot of using this kind process Rahera reckons, is that everyone has that “much more connection to the piece, and are able to perform it in a much more impactful way”. It is the constantly evolving nature of this way of working which has seen more rangatahi brought into the cast this year. Raiha talks about how important it is for her to be showing the next generation that ‘we’re not in that stage anymore, we’re moving through it. Our young people can be proud of our history and not scared of it anymore’. “This is about healing intergenerational trauma from the past. It’s important to heal that part of ourselves to be able to move forward in a stronger way” Marcia Akroyd Everyone involved in ‘Tūranga: The Land of Milk and Honey’ hopes that their work will encourage and inspire other Iwi to tell their own histories. “We are giving this as a koha to our community and if we can be an example to other Iwi, that would be massive” said Marcia. All of the cast also spoke passionately about the impacts of being involved in something like this in their own lives “through this process, we learn things we can apply in our daily lives, in terms of being resilient, vulnerable and standing up when something doesn’t align with our values”, as well as of knowing now what it feels like to be excited for a day’s work, and to leave at the end of the day fulfilled, “this is how I want to spend the rest of my life” says Rahera. “I think we are definitely changing the world doing this kind of mahi” said Raiha and I wholeheartedly agree. Make sure you check out ‘Tūranga: The Land of Milk and Honey’ on October 9, 2pm & 7pm at Lawson Field Theatre, the Rongowhakaata Iwi Trust bringing their stories into the light as a part of Te Tairawhiti Arts Festival 2020. Story & photos by Sarah Cleave.

This weekend just past, something a little bit unexpected took place inside a dimly-lit back entrance on Lowe Street. Until this Saturday night just past, this particular building had been sitting dormant for nine or so years.. cold and crumbling, silent and sleeping. On Saturday night, Steven King literally rattled the old girl awake from her slumber with his new Carrier show, ‘Patterns’. The old girl probably hadn’t ever really paid much attention to her floor before Saturday night, when it was shuddered alive by many pairs of feet, themselves awakened by what went on that evening, rendering the humble, stained and ripped carpet floor a dance floor for one exciting, atmospheric and rather energetic night. ‘Patterns’ was conceived by Steve during Lockdown in collaboration with his three machines; his Roland TR8 Drum Machine, Yamaha QY100 Sequencer and Roland SH 01a mono synth. Steve recognised the time was ripe for creating and, experiencing a certain kind of symbiosis between him and his machinery, he formed his initial concept for the piece within a day. When I first started talking to Steve about putting on a live performance here in Gisborne, he spoke of his desire to bring together an exploration of minimal composition, repetitive beats and spaciousness with a contemplative visual backdrop to create an experience that went beyond entertainment [1] and encouraged the immersion of the audience into the experience. For Steve, this first outing of ‘Patterns’ provided the opportunity to test drive his concept. It also gave him the chance to curate an entire experience in which every aspect was carefully considered and entirely intentional, from Campbell Ngata’s opening DJ set, whose choice of tunes lent a gentle familiarity and therefore some sense of normalcy to the sparce unknown space, to the choice of the space itself.. Steve talks of growing up partying in spaces like the Lowe Street one. But he also refers to the space as an acknowledgment of the origins of the music he makes, an homage if you like, to the grimy groundbreaking beginnings of electronic music; the reclamation of those disused spaces so closely intertwined with the sense of freedom expressed by the new, interesting and exciting forms of music coming alive inside them at the time. Using a vacant building was also important to Steve because “there are so many of these empty decaying buildings in Gisborne right now - we need to take back some that real estate and give it life, make it vibrant and do interesting things that stimulate people and get them excited”. For those of us lucky enough to experience this first outing of ‘Patterns’, the atmospheric location certainly added another layer to the visual package delivered alongside the audio, with its themes of decay and patterns; namely the particular pattern that we as humanity have been running the past hundred years or so, which is revealing itself to have been not such a great one. The visual compilation which was played in reverse, delivered a strong message of the need for us to undo what we have done. For an audience who has become well-used to their electronic music experiences involving a DJ and a laptop, getting to dance to a guy who’s making the music in real time just a few metres away, (and pulling in wonderful additions such as the cassette tape loop technique he’s recently been playing around with), it was no wonder that Saturday night’s audience showed their appreciation for the Carrier show in a big way. So while Steve had his own ideas about how this piece that he’s been plugging away from the safety of his headphones these past few months might be received, he wasn’t at all prepared the the outcome, which he describes as “a crazy thing”. He suggests that it was some kind of perfect storm in which the heightened excitement of a group of people brought together in a new space to experience something largely unknown, in combination with his material translated through an incredible sound system, created a lot more energy than he’d expected. “Art is designed to evoke a response, but you cannot control what that response is” Steve soliloquised, “and in this case the response was overwhelmingly crazy”. The last 20 plus years has seen Steven King move through many aspects of the electronic music scene. He has worked alongside many NZ artists including Pitch Black and the Nomad, audio genius Chris Chetland from Kog, and has shared compilations with household names like Trinity Roots and Fat Freddy’s Drop. King has released music in the U.S, Europe and the U.K and his music continues to be selected by DJs on European sound systems. He has been the opening act for international artists like Mad Professor and David Harrow - The James Hardway Quartet and has played to huge audiences like those that attended the One Love Festival’s and the Cuba St and Newtown Carnival’s in Wellington [2]. We are lucky to have Steven King and his musical talents in our midst, and we hope to see him sharing them with us again one day.. eh Steve! Story by Sarah Cleave. Photographs X Scott Austin [1] & [2] Excerpts from the Patterns event description written by Jo Pepuere.

For many Whataupoko dwellers, Ballance Street Village lingerers, and lovers of fine secondhand goods alike, this view of Ro Darrall and Doris in graceful repose out on the porch, will be a familiar sight. Waving out to passersby, receiving visitors and customers, taking in the gentle bustle of the Ballance Street Village on a good day.. Ro Darrall’s porch provides the shop frontage to her beloved shop Retro, a veritable treasure trove of retro and vintage goods from household objects to furniture, jewellery and clothing. The roots of Ro’s shop might be traced back to Ro’s childhood in Morrinsville and the many hours whiled away waiting and looking around the local Auction House as her mother, an avid collector of antiques, scoured the sprawling premises for elegant pieces to grace their home. When Ro left school and headed to Auckland, it was probably her grandmother’s influence that saw her entering the fashion business. Her grandmother liked to attend fashion shows, bought a new wardrobe for every season and put on a fresh outfit at 5pm each day, ready to face the evening ahead in style. Ro did her training in the Fashion Department at Milne and Choice, did a bit of modelling, was a Mary Quant cosmetic consultant for a while, and began collecting herself, “The op shops were fantastic back then.” Even then Ro would mostly go for objects from the 1940’s and 50’s eras because of “the design and the way things were made, they were made to last”. After a while Ro set off travelling, off to experience the ‘Shipboard Life’ for a while. The ship Ro boarded ended up in Italy, which was where Ro got off. Some few years later later, she came to Gisborne to hang out at the beach for a summer, and “that was it really.” During the 80’s and 90’s photography and music provided a colourful backdrop to Ro’s new life in Gisborne. For these she had her father to thank. Her dad had loved to make movies during her own childhood, and had bought Ro her first Box Brownie as a child. He had a couple of speakers permanently set up in the cowshed, presumably to woo the cows with Dean Martin and the likes, and was “always buying new 45s”. So in amongst raising two beautiful children Ro also used to DJ at the Gladstone Road bar No9, “up in the rafters” and brought in House DJ’s from the cities during the late 80s and, as I’m sure anyone who was there at the time will also attest, “the place went off”. Ro was also doing family portraiture, wedding and commercial photography and has also put together her fair share of shows on Radio 2ZG, The Switch and Tūranga FM over the years, sticking with her two favourite genres House and Jazz. It was after returning to Europe to watch her daughter Darnelle race at the World Rowing Championships in Eton, that Ro began collecting again in earnest with the idea of opening up a shop; a shop as it turned out, called Retro. Ro loves all the people she gets to meet and the stories she gets told about the treasures that end up in Retro - stories she then gets to pass on to the people who buy them. There’s a bit of sadness too though, which is the nature of the job when all of the items in her shop come from people cleaning out their parent’s homes or people who are down-sizing from the family home to a unit or residential care. More often than not, that passing of items from one set of hands to another represents the end of an era. To off-set that sadness though, Ro has plenty of local regulars as well as people visiting her shop from all over the country. Since Covid she says “it’s just like Christmas, it’s been so busy”. Busy with lots of people who just love this place, this place that Ro so clearly adores too. Story and Photo by Sarah Cleave

It was 4pm on a Sunday. The late afternoon sun was glowing gold, the sound of kids having a ball drifts over from the playground across the road, and from an unassuming garage came some sweet Sunday-sounding tunes from a stereo. Peeking inside, I spied a couple of what looked like bar leaners.. small tables waiting for a few Sunday arvo drinks perhaps? A couple of guys enter the garage and assume positions on either side of one of the tables. But instead of grabbing a drink they dip one hand in the chalk smattered over the table and grip the small handle at each end of the table with their other. The two men join their chalked hands in a loose grip and then proceed to roll their wrists around around in what I learn is arm wrestling warm up 101. John went to his first comp in 2014 and started the club in 2015. The club has been growing ever since, with about thirteen members consistently training at the moment, as many of them prepare for the upcoming Nationals. The tables inside start squeaking and I notice the six members, four men and two women, training inside ending up at some fairly extreme angles to the floor, table and each other. Heading inside I notice legs wrap around or push against the table legs, the other leg planted firmly on the ground. Sweat is beginning to bead on foreheads, the laughter and banter rise to match the volume of the music. Everyone’s got their favourite grip and technique; their best arm. It’s a whole body experience, I’m told. But mostly in the hand, wrist and forearm, not really the bicep. And it’s all about that initial grip. Sometimes you will know you’ve lost just by the feel of that first clasp, reckons Nuks, my trainer for the day. While arm wrestling is not for everyone and it’s not so well-known here, the New Zealand arm-wrestling scene is described as one big family. A sport that most often takes place in pubs, the competitions are unsurprisingly followed up by a good dose of socialising, and of course enough arm wrestling matches to ensure pretty tired arms by the end of the night. The Lock N Drop Club meets Sunday afternoons, and during the week the members do their own personal training. As I can attest after just one session with these guys, the club is all about teaching people how to arm wrestle as safely as possible. And as far as I could see this particular music and laughter-filled Sunday afternoon, it’s also about friendships, getting physical, a bit of banter and some good times. Thanks Darlene and John for having me and Nuks for all the tips! I’ll definitely be pulling them out next time I find myself at a table.. If you’d like to try your hand at arm wrestling, you can find Lock N Drop on Facebook here: www.facebook.com/Lock-N-Drop-Armwrestling-Club-1181556288580022 Story and photographs by Sarah Cleave

Amanda May first started making jewellery when she was about 6 years old. Along with her parents and three sisters, she made jewellery to sell at the Flea Market (now known as the Early Bird Market) to supplement the family income. The four girls would sit at their stall, threading up, beading, make sizing adjustments for their customers and keeping up with whatever jewellery trends were happening at the time..love beads, wire jewellery, feather earrings and stamped leather cuffs all had their time in the limelight.. Amanda has been the only one of her sisters to return to jewellery after those formative beginnings, but not before a few creative diversions along the way.. After finishing up her 4 year diploma in Interior Design at Carrington Polytech Design School, (now Unitec), Amanda was an architectural draftsperson for a couple of years before moving to Brighton in the UK where she worked as an Interior Designer with a firm specialising in hospitality fit-outs, designing bars and cafes around Europe. Returning to New Zealand some years later she continued with Interior Design for a firm specialising in healthcare and hotel interiors until 1999, when she decided the time had come for something new. Signing up for the Winemaking Course at the Tairāwhiti Polytech, Amanda found herself back in her hometown. In close succession came not just a family and a new home, but a lavender farm! In seeking to find an outlet for all the lavender she suddenly had on her hands, Amanda took another new turn, taking over the gift store on Gladstone Road called Bex, and it was this which saw her return to making jewellery. The label Bird of Prey was born to showcase Amanda’s creative endeavours, including her bold and gutsy jewellery collections. But while Bird of Prey is these days solely focused on jewellery, the vibe has remained the same, speaking to the values of freedom, strength and courage. After three months of gathering inspiration and motivation in Europe in 2019, Bird of Prey Jewellery has gone online. Whilst one might describe Bird of Prey jewellery as quirky and different to the mass-produced stuff, it’s ‘not so crazy that you can’t wear it’. Most recently Amanda has moved her jewellery-making out of the house and into a custom-built studio in her garden. The Bird of Prey Studio is where all the dreaming and making happens, and the beauty of having it at home is that she can keep her prices reasonable and the hours can flex to suit customers’ needs and local markets as they arise. Amanda is also always happy to carry out jewellery repairs, so if your favourite piece is languishing in some forgotten treasure box somewhere, take it along to the Bird of Prey Studio for Amanda to bring it back to life! The Bird of Prey Studio is open on Friday afternoons, or by appointment. Or you can find Bird of Prey online anytime at www.birdofprey.co.nz / @birdofpreyjewellery on Instagram / www.facebook.com/BirdofPreyJewellery

“I’m lucky, the kids are cool. Every year I think, this is it, I’m hanging up the boots, I’m off somewhere else. But then I see the kids again, and I’m back in. It’s humbling and neat”. Talking with Pura Kerekere Tangira, the conversation always comes back to the kids that he teaches, and this underlying theme of ‘belonging’. Which is perhaps why, no matter how tired Pura feels by the end of each year, he’s always back in the kura carpark at the beginning of the next year, guitar slung over his shoulder, and one or two of his nieces at his side ready to share te reo Māori, waiata, the stories of this place and a sense of belonging with our Gizzy kids.. Like many other parents and kids in this town, I have only ever known Pura Kerekere Tangira as Papa Pura. To some kids, he’s just Papa. Back in the day when the kids ran up to him in the kindy carpark, he’d notice their parents looking a little unsettled to see them hurtling towards ‘this dreadlocked, moko’ed up guy’. But these days he reckons it’s different, “Everyone’s used to me now...I’m a long way now from feeling like I am just ticking a box”. Pura has been teaching te reo Māori, Haka and Tikanga Māori on and off, but mostly on, since he was 18 years old. But while that seems completely natural now in retrospect, it was completely surprising to him and his whanau when it first started heading in that direction. Pura grew up with his Grandfather, Bill Kerekere, the renowned composer and broadcaster. Bill and his family moved from Gisborne to Wellington in the early 60’s to work in the newly-established New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation’s Māori Programmes section, and all of his moko including Pura, were born in Wellington. As Bill attended Māori hui of significance around the country, recording mihi, waiata and proceedings to be sent out on the radio waves, Pura was often there with him: “Every moment we weren’t at kura, we were next to him doing his thing. I had to carry his bags and sit at his feet, and so his reo was and still is, my reo”. Bill also ran a few Kapa Haka teams so haka was also a big part of Pura’s younger days. But it while it was in his blood and in his bones he didn’t actually “know what it was that I knew”.. Pura was sent by his grandparents to Christ’s College in Christchurch as he puts it ‘to get away from people who look like me’. He had never seen anything like it, “A castle! All the teachers had black cloaks on, like Dracula. I was crying to my grandmother, you can’t leave me here, look at them - they’re going to kill me!” There were a total of three kids who looked Māori in the whole school, “It was the first time I found out I was black.” Pura recalls doing the “most terrible haka with the most passion” and remembers not knowing what the words were. Some of his peers at the school were 4th, 5th generation Pākehā, their ancestors had come on the first Pākehā boats and had slept in those same school beds. For Pura it was a real eye opener, “But I got to do things I wouldn’t have got to do, met people I wouldn’t have met”. When Pura’s Grandfather retired and moved back up to Tūranganui-a-kiwa, Pura thought he would never have to do haka again. Now, ironically, it’s what he does, “And I love it”. So how did he get from there to here? At the age of 18, Pura was attending a hui in the Waikato. When a kaumatua asked for the song that Bill Kerekere had written for the Māori King to be sung, Pura couldn’t remember it and thought to himself ‘This can’t happen ever again’. The Monday following, one of his mates said he was off to do some haka, “Come on then” said Pura, and off he went. The next day he started a reo Māori course and two weeks later he was teaching. The songs started coming back to him and soon he was teaching Haka too. His grandfather Bill told him to go and get a ‘real job’ - that kind of thing was for doing after work he said. But Pura assured him he was getting paid more to do that than he had been for labouring, and so it began.. Starting out in Wellington, Pura taught in colleges, kindergartens and some of the first Kohanga Reo. He worked with the New Zealand School of Dance, the New Zealand Ballet, “Oh this is different” he thought. Bill was happy. Pura ended up working as a tour guide for a while, “I think I was good on the mike” and held the contract to teach te reo Māori in Parliament, counting Helen Clarke amongst his students. “I was even worse dressed then” he reckons, “there weren’t even any shoes involved in those days”. He started working at te Wananga o Aotearoa when he moved to the Waikato. Then they asked him to fly the flag for them in the prison, running te reo Māori programmes. It ended up going nationwide with locals running the programmes, which eventually included painting, raranga, carving and haka. For Pura it was all about his students being able to “fill their kete before they left”. He talks of some of his students wanting to stay put - in prison - so that they’d be able to take part in the kapa haka competition. Pura also ran a Tikanga Marae course at Waihirere for people who were on their way to or from prison for 13 years. But in the end he didn’t want to be an ambulance anymore, wanting to go at it from the other end, see if he could make more progress that way. So what exactly does that progress look like? Pura Kerekere Tangira describes it as our kids learning through waiata, the stories of this place and its people, of our kids being able to stand up and introduce themselves, giving them their own experience of the customs, beliefs and tikanga of Tangata Whenua. “At the least they’re learning another language” he says, “and at the most, they might want to take it further.” Pura talks about hearing kids telling their parents off for the way they pronounce Makaraka or Te Karaka, which he describes as “huge” because of course when he grew up, he said it the same way. As one of the parents of two of Pura’s students, and therefore by extension one of his students myself, the overwhelming lesson that I have taken home from Pura and the way he shares te reo and Tikanga Māori in our kura is that of Manaakitanga and his intention and ability to instil a sense of belonging in everyone that he sings alongside. “I love that - that belonging” he says, “It’s only us that walk like us and talk like us, and play like us”. Pura ends each of his school sessions with “Ka kite, Adios Amigos, Au Revoir, Nanu nanu, Coast with the Most!” and he gets that a lot, walking down the street, from kids he’s sung with, past and present “Coast with the Most Papa!” “It’s an honour” he says. And so it is. Thank you Pura. We are indeed honoured. Story by Sarah Cleave Photographs by Tom Teutenberg

Two years ago with her partner at her side Amy Moore embarked on the scariest thing she’d ever done... going on reality (not really reality) TV for 3 months. She knew that it would either make her or break her, and as it so happened, it did both. Amy talks about how it broke her physically and even more so mentally, getting inside her head and breeding fear. She began to fear other peoples’ opinions, public gatherings, social media.. she didn’t leave her own home for about 6 weeks after getting back, her ‘own personal lockdown’. After time though and with a little help from her friends, she made her way back to a place where she found enough belief in herself to do something different with her life; something meaningful that brought her enjoyment. Being creative has always been a part of Amy’s life and finding a physical space in which to do that was, as she describes it, her ‘saving grace’. Claiming the front of a commercial property occupied by her partner Stu and her Dad, a few walls were removed, a splash of colour added - mustard of course - and The WorkShop was born. Although it was pretty much ready to roll earlier this year, lockdown proved in some ways a blessing, giving Amy time to psych herself into actually physically opening the doors to the public. Since opening those doors a few months ago now, the Workshop has blossomed and morphed as any truly creative space does. The beautiful little shop with its hint of tasteful Indonesian tattoo parlour, filled with stylish crafts, good smells and vintage finds, was turned into a workshop space over the school holidays, where participating kids turned their hands to weaving. Next on the shapeshifting agenda is an indoor winter market for local artisans in the adjoining shed, which is taking place this Saturday 25 July, from 11am - 4pm. Amy is clear that the WorkShop is not only a creative space for herself, but for others as well. A place to pick up a handmade gift or vintage treasure, a place to sit and flick through books to derive a little inspiration for your home or a place to just pop in for a cuppa and to soak up a little inspiration for you too to do more of the things that you love. Don’t miss the opportunity to tap into a whole lot of local craftiness and some much-needed mid-winter colour and inspiration - The Workshop, 73 Carnarvon Street, next to Bollywood.

We spoke to Trish Tangaroa about what she would like to see for our community and our country as we re-emerge into Level One; new ways of doing things that would help whanau as well as Mother Nature: “During lockdown, I walked and walked. I reckon I probably walked more during lock down than I had in the last three years. I would walk, and I would notice all of the colours, the totally different look of the place; the āhua and the wairua of the place with no one around. It was so incredibly peaceful. I felt free and exhilarated, and despite the lockdown I felt happy. And despite (or perhaps because of) the lack of humans, I felt the same exhilaration all around me; Tangaroa laughed, Papatuanuku slept and Ranginui, bless his heart, just shone because thats his job. I had time to breathe, and enjoy a new world. “And I thought about how I love walking and how I love having no cars around. The Pacific Islands have carless Sundays. I spent 8 years in the Islands, between Rarotonga and Noumea with VSA (Volunteers Services Abroad). On Sundays the world stops except for the crescendo of harmony that reverberates from the spires of the churches. Life stops for that one day, then the cacophony reconfigures on the Monday. I wish for one day a week, life as we know it would stop. And we would inhale and exhale and so would Nature and Time and God. One day a week without cars. “I’ve kept the walking up after lock down but not as much because I’ve got to go to work. I’m waiting for Ardern to say we’re having four day working weeks now. I’m a teacher. Many at school can see sense in that. You probably get more out of people packing it into four days than you do now. Honestly. I think that the kids know that if they pack all that work into four days then they’ll get a three day weekend. They’ll be fine with it and they’ll pump..I’ll pump! “Covid provided us with an alternative reality. Our world is a walking time bomb that is difficult to navigate and which if we are not careful, we will destroy. Just as Covid 19 has destroyed much of mankind. This year I can retire and I know that I cannot continue for much longer with the stress of the life that teaching brings. The opportunity to do something for myself, such as finish my Masters in Te Reo, beckons. “I think we had so much opportunity to reevaluate our lives during lockdown, hard out”.