Last weekend I spent up large at Gisborne’s annual Art Mart at Marina Park. My definition of a big spend may differ to that of some people - I’m a pretty thrifty lady (nicely evolved from the frugality/stinginess of my younger years). But in the space of Sunday morn spent amongst a sunny array of browsers and vendors alike, I managed to find a birthday gift for my sister, a Christmas present for my niece, and I added a small pile of absolute beauties to the household’s ‘present drawer’, which will see us through a good few months of kids birthday parties. The best thing about the whole experience was how good that exchange of dollars felt every single time it passed from my wallet to the very hands of the artists, the craftspeople, the makers, who had made the pieces I was about to take home with me. I've been having a few conversations around the place lately with people wanting to ‘give up Christmas’ in different ways and to varying extents, but there is a rising energy it seems, to stop mindlessly playing out on repeat, this tradition that's become so skewed from its original self, and which does little to serve humans or the planet in its current form. One friend was trying to find the words to pen an email to whanau asking for their help and support, “Our kids are growing up in a world full of issues from mass consumption and we are trying to show them, through our purchasing choices, that we can make a difference” she writes. “Our hope is that the kids are fufilled with the simple things in life”. Another friend has taken to giving each of her children a sum of money, to be equally divided into three parts. One part to give, one part to spend on an artwork or an experience, and one part to spend on something that they really really want. That same friend talked about a shift to celebrating the Equinox instead of Christmas, in the hope of further distancing themselves from the consumeristic connotations of the latter. Yesterday I reminisced with a fellow parent about our own childhoods in which we placed such high value on the things that we owned and experienced - our marble collections, the second hand bike our parents had done up for our birthday with a lick of paint and addition of some spokey dokeys, the annual trip to McDonald’s for a birthday celebration, the rarified glass of Fanta or Sprite. These days when there’s an absolute excess of everything, that sense of anything holding any particular value has certainly become a difficult concept to impart to our young’uns. My partner and I don’t buy our kids much new stuff. It’s not to say that they - we - don’t still end up with piles of stuff though. I made a concerted (and rather short-sighted) effort to train my daughters into op shopping from a young age, and it was only when I realised that, contributing to a circular economy though I might be, it was taking away from that notion of value in scarcity just as much as buying new stuff all the time would be, and so these days op shopping too has become a once in a while kind of occasion (ahem). It’s not that I don’t sometimes question this approach we take. When the kids are looking at us like we’re just downright mean..when the front brakes on my daughters bike that I got for $30 at a Barwicks Auction before she was even born come unclipped for the second time in the week, when I’m refusing yet again to buy something because of the way it has been packaged..it is hard to not just start feeling - downright mean. But although I cringe every time I hear myself saying ‘you’ll understand one day’ I do think that the way in which we remember ‘scarcity’ with such fond nostalgia and almost romantically, holds us to the truth of this notion. Which delivers me back in a very circular manner to the value of the craftsperson, the local makers and marketplaces for their goods in a healthy community and creative economy. Last weekend I came away from the Art Mart with about 10 gifts (including one for myself) having put about $70 into the local economy, which I’m guessing for a lot of Warehouse customers is probably a fairly modest spend. My five daughter and I had had a rare kind of shopping expedition in which neither of us had a tantrum and during which we stopped and talked with friends and people we knew, makers and fellow browsers alike. My daughter got to experience this simple yet rarefied concept of buying things from the people whose hands had made the ‘stuff’. It was a warm and sunny day, the band matched the mood of the weather and we took the dog and my daughter’s bike for a run around the cycleway to finish. There’s plenty of opportunity for supporting our local makers and easing the environmental impact of our Christmas shopping spend this weekend, with both the whimsical Willowsong Summer Fair in the Rose Gardens and the always outstanding Upmarket in the Ballance Street Village tomorrow and the Royal Market in Matawhero on Sunday. Other ideas for more sustainable giving can be found aplenty if you’re looking for them - vouchers for future adventures or help doing something, tickets for experiences, memberships, secondhand goods, up-cycled goods, home baking.. the list goes on. For the less time wealthy amongst us though I highly recommend a mosey around a local makers market! Story by Sarah Cleave. Image X Ro Darrall.

The origins of one of Gisborne’s latest home-grown businesses, Food Cartel, might be found on the sideline of a kids footie match where, over the course of a season, Drew and Katie Hill listened with increasing interest to fellow parents comparing notes on their Meal Kit Home Delivery services of which there are many currently operating in New Zealand. Eventually, they decided to try it out for themselves and went straight to the top with a gourmet box from one of the major players in the meal kit delivery game. But what arrived on their doorstep that fateful day was disappointment. The ‘Fresh East Coast Tarakihi’ was fed to the cat. The bendy carrot went straight to the compost. Upon contacting the supplier to express their disappointment that they wouldn’t be be feasting upon a gourmet dinner that night after all, they were offered a discount on their next order. They were kindly informed that the fish had absolutely been fresh.. when it had been vacuum sealed one week prior. Drew and Katie thought about the long round trip their East Coast Tarakihi had made, from ocean to the Bay of Plenty and back again, only to arrive at its destination inedible and so far from the claims of freshness. And they thought quite simply that fateful day, ‘let’s do it ourselves’. You could say the seeds of Food Cartel were sown many years ago when Katie and Drew first met. Katie a vegetarian chef and Drew an appreciator of meat who at the time was devoting a fair bit of his time tending to his gardens on Valley Road. Fast forward to 2019, the pair were both casting out their nets for new direction, and something they could do together. Fast forward to 2019 and this fast-paced life in which delivered meal kits are an increasingly normal part of life for some people. The standard model however is by no means a fix for everything and in fact, as Drew and Katie had picked up over the course of many Saturdays on the football field sideline, there’s a lot about home delivered meal kits that is downright counter-intuitive in these times in which we’re aspiring for positive change, new ways of doing things, which work forour people and our planet, rather than against them. In Food Cartel Katie and Drew set out to provide a model that works for our community; the consumers, food producers and fellow local businesses and for our Earth. Maintaining as small a carbon footprint as possible is a major focus for the business, with 97% of the ingredients found in their food boxes grown locally. Items unable to be sourced in Gisborne are purchased from local businesses, and there are even items in a Food Cartel box that can’t usually be found on Gisborne supermarket shelves, such as export-quality Turihaua beef - thereby enabling those producers to reduce their carbon foot print, you might say! Plastic-free and recyclable packaging is also a priority, consumers are encouraged to leave out the box that had contained the previous kit to be picked up upon the next delivery. Paper bags are used instead of plastic ones and the pair are currently exploring the use of glass jars for items that would usually be vacuum-packed. Drew and Katie aren’t necessarily taking the easy way, but they’re taking a line that allows them to sleep at night. They’re also doing their best to ensure that ability to sleep easy extends to their customers, who aren’t lock into contracts or subscriptions, which are de rigueur with other meal kit companies. “We’re drawing people in with love, not locking them in with chains” says Drew, off the cuff and to the heart of the Food Cartel philosophy. Boxes are packed and delivered the following day, so when Food Cartel uses the word ‘fresh’, it means fresh. Drew and Katie are also motivated by their ability to use this space to encourage healthier eating habits in our community; being innovative with their menus to educate around meal sizes, healthy proportions of meat and veg, and catering to vegetarians as well as people eating keto. I myself was particularly taken by the sentiment behind the hangover boxes and barbeque/grazing boxes, providing some well-considered assistance in two potentially stressful situations! Together with their two children Lucy and Leroy, these guys live and breathe food. They rave over the life-giving properties of the Manzano chilli crop in their backyard, loved just as much by the kids as themselves. They call themselves urban farmers, loving nothing more than to preserve whatever they forage and then give it away. Drew’s preoccupation with issues around food, the health of our community and our earth has been evident too in his art over the past few years. His works in the 2016 Auckland International Art Fair and his 2017 show ‘In Your Face’ passed fairly unambiguous comment on ‘Corporations killing generations with fast food’; the stuff people around the world are consuming by the bucket load that as Drew points out ‘isn’t even food’. In these works body builders hang next to cow carcasses in freezing work fixtures. The later works Drew printed directly onto discarded fast food wrappers, the polluting propaganda of the multinationals themselves. I think Food Cartel offers our community a pretty awesome opportunity to support local, especially if you are in the meal kit market already. You’re not only supporting a home-grown business but also the local producers and growers supporting them. With a liquor licence currently in the works, which will enable local export quality wine and local brews to be added into the box of offerings, the future of Food Cartel is looking hot – Manzano Chilli hot – because that’s the way they like it. Do not be concerned however, they assure me they tone down the spices for the general public. Sounds like ka pai kai to me Food Cartel and a beautiful approach to boot, ‘Love not chains!’ Check out the good stuff and place yourself an order! foodcartel.nz For more on Drew’s Art go to drewhill.co.nz Story by Sarah Cleave

Whāia te iti Kahurangi, ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei’ ‘Strive to succeed, and should you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain’,” Of the many kōrero tied to Titirangi, this Whakataukī was chosen to be the guiding sentiment of Whāia Titirangi – a restoration operation unfurling on one of Gisborne’s most loved sites. The pūrākau tells of Tawhito, descended from Taiau and Tamahinengaro, who lived on Titirangi maunga. He enchanted the beautiful Te Aoputaputa of Te Whakatohea, who was overcome by the desire to be with her love. She decided to leave Opotiki, but her father was worried about the long and arduous journey ahead of her. He gave her a mantra for when she felt like she couldn’t go on – ‘Whāia te iti Kahurangi, ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei’. This sentiment is used today “to encourage young people to strive for excellence in all their pursuits”, and be relentless until they achieve them, says Whāia Titirangi project manager Ranell Nikora. When urgent actioned was needed to address the unruly pest-plant growth on the maunga, Whāia Titirangi was the answer. Whāia Titirangi is a strategic plan committed to the comprehensive and continuous management of Titirangi, that integrates both the Gisborne District Council and Ngāti Oneone. Two young women have contributed to a mountain of changes through Whāia Titirangi. The programme is spearheaded by Jordan Tibble and Mihikura Te Pairi, who have been elected as the operational cadets. The cadet programme was born out of the desire to build capacity for kaitiakitanga, to give young people the skills to be the future guardians of the whenua. Energetic, passionate and not afraid of hard work, these two wahine fit the bill. Guided by the knowledge of senior staff and the Biosecurity team, a large part of Mihi and Jordan’s work involves weed management, but they also find time to lead group planting sessions and manage the Whāia Titirangi social media. It is hard hard mahi, often involving exhausting physical work and long hours, but Jordan and Mihi are proud to do it for their whenua and their iwi. The Whakataukī, shortened to ‘lofty mountains’ comes in handy on hard days, as it reminds them to keep going. For such active cadets, they find the hardest part of their work to be the hours spent indoors in the office. Ranell is adamant that the stance for the cadet programme is not ‘what can we get out of our workers’, but ‘what can we do for them’, a perspective which bolsters their holistic development. She has always been supportive of the cadets’ other interests and pursuits and insists that investing in their well-being leads to happier, healthier, more fulfilled people. Jordan and Mihi explain that from an employee perspective, they also feel looked after. With a strong emphasis on the cadets’ professional development, the cadets have received vocational training such as drivers licencing, first aid and chemical handling. After delivering a season of planting sessions, often for large audiences, they have found themselves more confident speakers and have grown socially, appreciative of the new relationships gained. The cadets also undergo a thorough cultural education, with regular wananga covering topics such as the Titirangi Maunga korero, whakapapa, tikanga and kawa. This understanding is integral to the role of kaitiaki and nurturing the spiritual connection to the maunga. Community education and passing on Māoritanga is a key component of public planting days. Jordan and Mihi have been praised for their role as advocates for celebrating Māori knowledge and perspectives, and sharing the unique story of the land. Many new feet have been introduced to Titirangi soil; there have been regular public planting days and korero about the maunga flora and fauna for volunteers, council, learning institutions and schools. It is easy to grasp the impression that Jordan and Mihi have left on their people, with tamariki including them as characters in their stories at school. For Ranell, putting Jordan and Mihi in visible positions of leadership is key in challenging the typical ideal of ‘success’, and showing the young people of Gisborne that people who look, speak, act and think like them can be leaders too. Titirangi has undergone a drastic transformation since the Whāia Titrirangi team began their work in October last year (2018). The threat of weeds has dwindled, and the roadside and main amenity areas look like they’ve been given a bit of TLC. It is estimated that under the programme, 5500 new natives will be planted on Titirangi this season. Truly built from the work of many different hands, the native trees used for plantings days are the fruits of labour of The Women’s Native Tree Project. Since Whāia Titirangi’s inception, The Project has generously donated upwards of 450 trees and provided a nursery space to foster new seeds sourced from Titirangi. With the maunga’s new look, Whāia Titirangi is noted to be “the most successful and cohesive programme in maintaining the reserve” and being of such unique structure, it has already caught attention from afar as a model of iwi-council partnership. The continuation of funding would see a weed-free, pest-free, ecologically enhanced Titirangi. Hopefully, the replenishment of forest will welcome the return of more native birds and reptiles, and we could even expect community fruit and vegetable crops to appear. Ranell knows the cadets won’t be here forever, and they might not need to be – Whāia Titirangi has been responsible for passing on a healthy legacy of kaitiakitanga, aiming to inspire the current and future generations beyond that to be the new ‘cadets’ of the maunga. Ranell wants to see the operation expand, taking on more cadets as kaitiaki with Titirangi as their training ground– who can then spread their skills around the East Cape region where our biodiversity needs it most. Thanks to the work of Ranell, Jordan, Mihi, and the Whāia Titirangi team, Titirangi has been a site of growth - not of just plants, but people and passion as well. Story by Lauren Turner.

A year and a half ago Kahurangi Ngata decided to take control of his own learning and life. His first decision was to forgo his final year of high school, Year 13. Instead, with his parents’ blessing he would set out into the world that awaited beyond the school gates, with dreams of exploring art and gathering ideas for his future, whilst keeping ‘as busy as possible’. Since then Kahu has been on a path that has taken him to parts of the country he’s never been before, alongside new people as well as friends and whanau. Kahu seems to have this ability to see opportunities for learning in everything he does and in everyone he meets. When we spoke he had this shiny-eyed enthusiasm and excitement, which was both compelling and reassuring. When Kahu first set out to explore Art eighteen months ago, he had a few ideas about the kind of art he thought he wanted to do, but these have altered course and amplified in scale along the way. A month spent at animation studio Nyuk Nyuk Studios in Wellington, alongside his uncle, helped Kahu realise that animation wasn’t really for him after all. But he soaked up all he could from a guy who was back home from eight years of oil painting in Florence, learning how to transpose age-old methodologies from paint brush to his ipad pen; old to new. Last year also presented Kahu with the opportunity to volunteer with the Seawalls crew in Gisborne, and it was through this experience Kahu discovered his love of the large-scale artwork. Not only does the outdoor aspect appeal but he’s found that spray painting works well with his fast and unstructured, loosely-planned style, ‘if I plan too much, or try to repeat an idea, I usually find it just doesn’t work or look how I want it to look’. Kahu completed his first mural The Tui & The Kākā at Solander Cellars in March this year. ‘Do you know that I’m interested in Birds? I could talk about birds for ages’ says Kahu. A trip to the Zealandia Ecosanctuary in Wellington has turned Kahu into an avid researcher of birds. While he has always enjoyed drawing bird life, these days Kahu will take any opportunity to get closer to them, which has variously included tramping with friends, spending time with some people he knows who look after birds and visiting Wingspan in Rotorua. Kahu seems entirely happy to be painted with the ‘Birder’ brush; he’s fascinated by the uniqueness of our bird life in Aotearoa and their role in our country’s history. Interesting facts and anecdotes about birds spilled from Kahu as we spoke, his infectious enthusiasm and sense of wonder that made me want to go straight home and delve into all the old bird books on our bookcase. Kahu’s family’s involvement with the Te Toki Voyaging Trust (his dad Morgan was crew on the waka that travelled from Auckland to te Tairawhiti in 2017 and his mum Cleo crewed on the Waka that went to Norfolk Island last year) has piqued Kahu’s own interest in what is being called the ‘Waka Renaissance’ in Aotearoa and led to his own involvement with the Trust. Lately he has been based up in Auckland volunteering with Te Toki. He helps out with boat maintenance, preparing the waka for Tuia 250 commemorations later this year, and is involved in the training sessions, all the while absorbing as much knowledge as he can from the people around him. The experience has added another aspiration to his hopes for his future which is to be involved with the waka that will travel to the Pacific next year. Being away from Gisborne and immersed in the intensity of our biggest most hectic city has also given Kahu a newfound appreciation for Home. While Kahu’s experiences in this past while have undoubtedly been aided by supportive whanau and open doors around the country, it is Kahu’s own focus and openness to learning from any person he might come across and any situation he finds himself in, that make him a great poster boy for the case of self-directed learning. So while not everyone always has access to such support networks, we do all have the ability to open our eyes to the fact that teachers and learning opportunities reside around every corner, across every table. Just as Kahu is continually soaking up ideas, inspiration and imagery from everything he can, I came away from our conversation with scribbled notes to myself about birds to look up, new bands to check out. I also brought away a reminder to myself about the importance of listening to our young people, just as they are listening, and trying to learn from our mistakes. Story by Sarah Cleave Images supplied

“Stella is the kind of pinny who should be lying in a rowboat on a still and beautiful lake, trailing her long fingers in the water as the afternoon passes her by. Her laugh is languorous, her imagination a delight, her conversational tangents legendary…” Beginning a conversation with Janine Hamilton-Wells was rather like embarking upon one of her short stories about her rescued pinnies. We were one sentence in and I wanted to know more. We were talking about the day ahead. It was Janine’s ‘day off’ and following our interview she would be going to sit with someone in the last weeks or months of their life. They were going to sit together and talk about that person’s life; a conversation, which Janine would record and then take home to transcribe and turn into that person’s biography or life story for them and their family. Interestingly enough, it was this process of sitting with people and drawing out the stories of their lives as a volunteer biography writer for Hospice that was one of the major inspirations for Janine’s creative enterprise Pinny for Your Thoughts. ‘People often say ‘I really haven’t done much’ or ‘I’m not that interesting’ before going on to share fascinating stories’ Janine says. It is in these every day and often domestic scenes, where hopes, dreams and relationships are played out, that Janine believes the essence of ‘being human’ often dwells. She was compelled to try and capture these simple moments and sentiments in her own storytelling. “What Ruby does love is pressing flowers. She has elevated this hobby to a true art form. There is something about preserving the beauty of a perfect bloom and capturing that moment of perfection that Ruby adores” A year or so ago Janine was also thinking a lot about the impacts of fast fashion and its effect on the planet and also feeling that the time had come to try some new things; things that she found a bit scary. She thought it would be useful to learn how to create and maintain a website, learn about marketing, and run a small business. Add to mix this Janine’s abiding love of op shopping and a growing passion for writing, and a business rehoming vintage pinnies with personalities came into being. “Although small in size and stature she still packs a punch and is the kind of friend you think carefully about where to seat at a dinner party”. Janine’s appreciation for women’s craft as a skilled art shines through in the characters she creates for the pinnies, or aprons as you might call them, which she finds and then takes home for some tender loving care and a spot of studied anthropomorphism. Janine’s description of the process of how she tends to her subjects is very much one of ritual and reconnection with the ways of the past; she treats her pinnies to the kind of care that many of them would well remember from their former lives. By the time Janine has put them to soak in warm water, soapy with sunlight soap grated into the bucket, given them a wash and hung them out to dry in the sunshine she has usually settled on a name. Mabel, Lillian, Laura, Thelma, Bea, Effie.. “Effie has the kind of brain that can add, subtract, multiply and work out complex percentages in her head. This makes Effie a very popular pinny to have on a fundraising committee..” But it is when she irons her pinnies that she really starts to notice the little characteristics of her subjects and their stories begin to form in her head. A jam stain might allude to her subject’s fun and friendly nature; conjuring up an image of her character sitting on the back steps chatting away to a friend while the jam burns on the stove inside. Sometimes the pinny might have a little tear or a bit of wear, giving Janine a sense of the kind of life she might have led; of her thoughts and dreams.. As Janine hones her writing and storytelling craft through her Pinny stories, she rates the rehoming or sale of a ‘rather plain pinny’ as the ‘ultimate success’ as it suggests that someone has identified with the story as opposed to just falling in love with a very lovely piece of handiwork. Pinny for Your Thoughts seems like a pretty fabulous creative enterprise to cut one’s teeth on to me. Bringing together a raft of life-enhancing practices like creative writing, op shopping and slow approaches to living, I find myself inspired to also add a bit more anthropomorphism into my life. - No Janine, my bike doesn’t have a name, and until now I haven’t given much thought to the personalities of my indoor plants, even when I am yes, aware of their obvious likes and dislikes, but I suspect that may be about to change.. Given our very human tendency to relate more easily to people we understand ie. people who are pretty similar to ourselves, surely the framing of other things we share space with in human terms would extrapolate into more empathy, more care and less waste when it comes to the stuff of our lives? Check Janine’s work out for yourself www.pinnyforyourthoughts.com “Labelling pantry goods is Mabel’s favourite way to relax and a shelf full of perfectly labelled Tupperware is her happy place. If you like a pinny with a kind and orderly vibe Mabel could be the girl for you..”

He is Peter Harris, He is Philosophy, He is Beauty, Truth, Love and Freedom. He is Ferrocement, DreamHavens, He is Blank Canvases, Freshly Painted Artworks, He is Books and Bookshelves made from Free Wood. He is Driftwood from Town Beach and Intricate, Fantastical Carvings, He is the Roof that Houses the Unhousable: Peter Harris’ Creative Brain. Yes, Dreamspace Workshop and Gallery sprouted up on the outskirts of Gisborne CBD in 2016, a huge building that surely would fit all of Peter Harris’ creations, with room for other artistic souls? It turns out that his creative brain has infinite permutations, nigh on impossible to be accommodated under one tangible roof. During the ensuing three years, Peter has magnetised an eclectic collection of people, who have recently helped to rejig, declutter, and de-dust the Dreamspace premises, to create a little space for themselves to showcase their creations alongside Peter’s. He is over the Moon, so to speak. The result of this intertwining of creative people under the Dreamspace Roof, is the upcoming Dreamspace Bazaar (or is it Bizarre? …both.) It will share the magic of co-creation with any adventurous spirit who dares to step foot over the threshold! So go on, be daring, and visit Dreamspace on the 6th of July, to be delighted by the creativity, the workmanship, the colour, the music, the friendliness, the…bizarre that is Dreamspace! Words by Anna Harris Photographs by Tom Teutenberg

Last week I walked into the Tairawhiti Environment Centre and had barely greeted the two women present when one of them asked me if I would like a bag. If there is one thing I have plenty of, it is bags and so I gracefully declined. Not to be deterred, the woman who I now know to be a wonderful person called Glenda, pulled out a pile of bags that she had recently whipped up out of a pile of curtain samples donated to Plastic Bag Free Tairawhiti. As soon as I saw the bags in question I briskly reneged on my previous answer, and without a hint of grace grasped in my clutches the beauty of a bag you see in the photo. There are so many words that can be written in a month we now know as Plastic Free July. We can localise our sentiments as much as we like but they will hold true for nearly every other community around the planet, because whatever way we look at it, it’s been a bad few years for plastic. This July we can give a little fist pump for the banning of single-use plastic bags, a small but significant regulatory victory in the very big fight that we face. Yay! We can talk about the recent changes in our recycling regime - hasn’t that been a bitter pill to swallow team? Would you like an extra helping of guilt with your yoghurt/hummus/ice cream/mayonnaise today Madam? We can commiserate over what a fruitless exercise banning single use plastic bags can seem when every single thing you think about buying from the supermarket comes packaged up in the stuff (and unlike ‘single use’ plastic bags it’s hard to find a second use for it). As Nicky Solomon one of the founders of Plastic Bag Free Tairawhiti (PBFT) agrees, it’s very easy to be paralysed by the magnitude of the issue. ‘Plastic Free July’ provides us with the motivation to make small manageable changes to the way we live, in the quest to leave an inhabitable planet for our children and grandchildren. In Plastic Free Julys of the past I have often found myself dwelling on all the stuff I’m NOT doing on the minimising waste front and have wasted a lot of time feeling pretty stink about it too. But as time has gone on and I’ve plodded away at making one small change, and then another, I’ve noticed how my feelings toward the issue has changed. I’ve noticed how empowered I feel every time I give something new a go, however basic or rudimentary that thing may be. It can be downright exhilarating to return to that resourcefulness that is so deeply embedded in my - in our - DNA. Moreover, I can’t think of a ‘cooler’ opportunity for communities to come together, on both a local and global scale, than in a bid to save our planet for future generations. All of a sudden we have a very pressing need to try and achieve the very thing that thousands of fictional super heroes before us have aspired to, but in Real Life. It can be a very motivating thought if we let it be, if we can resist allowing it to be the toxic fuel that could just as easily propel us into an inescapable pit of despair. Initially Nicky Solomon and Jess Jacobs had ideas of PBFT enabling a plastic-free region by working with one business at a time to kick their reliance on plastics, whilst chipping away at the low-lying fruit of the ubiquitous plastic bag; these things that were everywhere but which they knew we could easily do without, once we’d got our heads around that possibility. Nicky talks about the unforeseen ‘lovely second layer’ to the group’s activities; activities which didn’t initially seem like ‘core business’ as such, like the Beach Clean ups, and the regular reusable bag sewing bees and the two slightly mad and truly wonderful 24 Hour Bag-a-thons; in which people from all corners of our community came together to collaborate, create and just spend time in each other’s space. Those connections and that collaboration can be viewed as lovely by-products of community initiatives which bring people together to work toward a common good, but they are really in the end what will see us succeeding rather than failing in that quest to create a bright future for the generations that will follow us. Glenda put it well to me that day she gave me a bag ‘If you want a caring world then you have to care’. Glenda cares by stitching together reusable bags - objects of beauty as it turns out - and sending them out into the community, for whoever comes across them to enjoy. Using this aspiration of a plastic bag-free Tairawhiti to connect, to collaborate and heal.

Great vibes at the Subset B.C. gig last Saturday, these guys get better every time I see them. The live visuals by Pauly B provided a very apt subtext to the show and the audience were about as engaged a crowd as you will find. The Dome Room dance floor was ripping! Photos by Tom Teutenberg

Tuesday night in Gisborne – what to do for pure, unpressured, lift-the-spirits fun? If you’re someone who loves to sing out loud but doesn’t really want anyone to hear you, then Pub Choir at Smash Palace is the place for you. Here you will find somewhere between 10 and 30 kindred spirits gathered around a leaner in front of the fire, singing their hearts out. Choir master Darryl Monteith leads with his personal fearless passion for singing, and a songwriter’s adulation for the poetry and musical skill of others. His accomplished and enthusiastic guitar playing includes intros just like you hear when the original song is playing on the radio, so sets the scene for everyone to start perfectly on the first note. Pub Choir has been happening for over a year now, and with a new song introduced every week, there’s quite a folder of lyric sheets. Suggestions for songs to include are welcomed and always create a debate. The resident cats, Dash and Pash, meander over the leaner adding their voices to the debate and hoping for a cuddle on the side. You learn the actual lyrics of songs you’ve been enthusiastically singing only the chorus of for years. In fact seeing the lyrics written down can be a revelation in itself. My personal unforgettable favourite is from Split Enz “I see Red” ….”Squeezed me out of your life like molten toothpaste…” poetry! Some people are actually quite good. So there is a reliable foundation of tunefulness and harmony. You are mostly free to follow your own whim as to which part you sing. However Darryl has been known to divide the choir up into a group with brown eyes and a group with blue when two parts are clearly required. I asked a few people why they come – what do you enjoy about Pub Choir? The most common response was along the lines of “I really like to sing and I’ve always loved the feeling of singing out loud – but I’m much too shy. This choir makes it OK. There’s no judgement and its completely unpretentious: pure fun and definitely uplifting. There’s no commitment to come every week, so if you don’t turn up, you don’t feel like you are letting anybody down.” Others spoke of being new to town and enjoying meeting new people, and of finding a new self-confidence in trying an activity which is out of their comfort zone. Suffice to say everyone is welcome – 7pm Tuesdays at Smash Palace By Carol Ford