Fundraising earns Queen's medal

Railene Mabin joined the Plunket group in Takapau in 1970 after the birth of her third child. Photo / Clinton Llewellyn

Waipukurau's Railene Mabin has raised a "heck of a lot" of money for Plunket in Central Hawke's Bay in the past 40 years -- more than $250,000.

For her fundraising efforts, the 82-year-old was awarded lifetime membership of the organisation in March this year. Now she has also been awarded a Queen's Service Medal for services to Plunket.

Mrs Mabin said she was "astonished" at the recognition.

"My father got an MBE and I remember the huge excitement of that but I never dreamt I would receive something like this myself."

Mrs Mabin joined the Plunket group in Takapau in 1970 after the birth of her third child, Dougald, when the organisation had "absolutely no money".

When members were asked to go home and bake cakes to raise funds, Mrs Mabin looked around the grounds of her home at Taniwha homestead -- which has been in husband Barrie's family for more than a century and is blanketed in daffodils every spring -- and had a much better idea.

"The aunties or someone must have planted them back in the 1920s and I thought 'hold on, they're still flowering after 50 years -- I know how we can make some money'."

So after picking bunches of daffodils, she sent her then 10-year-old son Angus and nine-year-old daughter Heather to the gates of the property to stand and sell them to passing motorists on State Highway 2.

Mrs Mabin then started picking and selling the flowers at local garages before the family suggested she open up Taniwha to the public.

"I found people liked picking their own, which was a lot easier for me."

Eventually Mrs Mabin's annual Taniwha Daffodils fundraiser was born. For one month every spring, cars and busloads of visitors -- ranging from school children to retirement village residents, to families and international tourists -- roam around the property picking bunches of 30 daffodils for $5.