Marae
Our focus to support and progress the marae with our māra kai beds has finally come to fruition! It was brilliant timing having the nurseries available with our supply of plants for the Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu kaimahi visit. We hope the team who chose to come out enjoyed their visit, I thoroughly appreciated their time helping with our spring plantings and the beginnings of us becoming even more sustainable. The plants came through a māra kai fund provided by Te Puni Kōkiri. I can now finally provide a report to show we are well on the way to making our marae more sustainable. The programme of encouraging small work activities with our rōpū has been welcomed with groups seeing the marae beginning to flourish and very much looking forward to being fully available to assist.
We have hosted a number of rōpū receiving their cultural professional development and board meetings over the month. All were well provided for with kai Māori specially requested through our preferred caterer for their lunch – as well as humble offerings of the first catch of the West Coast whitebait caught and cooked by Richard for those who jumped on the bus to Rāpaki from Ngāi Tahu. A very enjoyable day. As part of our environment and the building of the new wharekai we are now at the point where bookings may be affected due to the works taking place. We may therefore have to cancel some bookings – this will be decided on a case by case basis dependent on requirements. [Read more…]