What a pleasure it was to be at the blessing of the taonga made by Aunty Ranui, Aunty Doe, Nanny Mu, Paula Rigby and Tui Falwasser for the new visitors centre at Christchurch Botanical Gardens.

After the taonga were blessed, we moved to the new building and James Robinson took us through blessing the building, as the royal party were coming through, before “the official opening” of this new building.

Two days after, it was an honour for Reimona and myself to attend the public opening of the “Te Maara Hua Oti o Waipapa” and stand to tautoko Tui Falwasser, who has worked very hard on this project for the last three years.

This is the first time I have known Tūāhuriri to have had input into a project from the drawing board to completion. Tui’s dedication and passion to it all is a credit to her.

It was great to see Uncle Charlie, Aunty Mere, Aunty Alamein and Aroha and Alex Tuira with their two daughters to tautoko our Tūāhuriri representative, Tui Falwasser.

Great work my niece and thank you for ensuring our mana and history will survive long and strong.
Nā Jenny Buccanan.