Kōrero is Pukerua Bay’s new community newsletter. It’s a place for keeping our community connected and informed. A place for celebrating what we have and working together to make it better. Through the generous support of our advertisers and sponsors, issues will periodically land in your letterbox throughout the year.
Current issue
Vol 4, Issue 3, June 2024 (PDF)
National Library of New Zealand: 45369835 / ALMA 21361949640002836
WorldCat: OCLC 1249555898
Kōrero is brought to you by a small group of locals in the hope that, over time, everyone in our community will find something in it that is useful, interesting … even exciting! For that to happen, we need your involvement. If you have items to contribute or would like to advertise, please email us via newsletter@pukeruabay.org.nz or use the Contact Us form on this website.
Next Issue: out in August 2024
The copy deadline for the next issue is 8 July 2024.
Editorial, June 2024
Mānawatia a Matariki!
Happy Māori New Year!
Our cover photo sets the theme for this issue: music and Matariki. It features Will McClean, whose first gig was performing at our 2019 Matariki celebration. On page 4, you can read about Will’s life of music with his whānau at home and how now, having taken his music from Pukerua Bay to the rest of Aotearoa, he is getting ready to take it to the world. Will, our love and thoughts are with you.
Members of our community have incredible, diverse careers. Nicholas Giles-Palmer is a skilled pianist who has long been the répétiteur for the Royal New Zealand Ballet (p.3). Jonathan Harker works in IT during the day and is a professional trombonist at night (p.5)!
As Claire Conradie reflects, music can be a way of finding and sharing joy (p.9). Long-term resident Ray Brown knew this, using music to share his love of this “earthly paradise” (pp.8–9). As Murray Kilpatrick tells us, members of the Pukerua Bay Folk Club have been doing it for over 30 years (p 7)!
The kaupapa for Matariki this year is Tupuānuku (Pleione), the Matariki star connected to Rongo-mā-Tāne, the atua of agriculture. How appropriate that the Community Garden and Food Forest is participating this year, with storytelling events involving the use of a crankie. These will sit alongside other special events organised by Ahu Charitable Trust and the Pukerua Bay Hub, sponsors of this issue of Kōrero, with the highlight being Te Ara Matariki, the starry walk.
Tupuānuku encourages us to attend to our wellbeing through tending to that of the taiao (natural environment). What better time to be thinking about purchasing one of the Community Garden’s tea towels, paying a visit to the Raumati South Repair Café, or attending the Climate Action Group’s forthcoming workshops? We also need to care for each other, so do check out Pukerua Bay’s updated Emergency Hub Guide and the Residents’ Association’s submission on Council’s 10-year plan (p. 15).
So many of our local initiatives have been an outcome of our participation in Porirua’s Village Planning Programme, including Kōrero itself. We join with the Residents’ Association in grieving Council’s decision to end the programme and urging it to reconsider. In the meantime, we hope Kōrero can play a part in giving residents a voice in shaping our community and continuing to live our shared values.
The next issue will come out in August, with the theme of hauora (health and wellbeing). What does hauora mean to you? And how can we promote hauora for ourselves and each other?
Waiho i te toipoto, kaua i te toiroa.
Let us keep close together, not wide apart.
We acknowledge mana whenua of Pukerua Bay, Ngāti Toa Rangatira. For Ngāti Toa news, see www.ngatitoa.iwi.nz
