Turner Centre volunteer Denis Breytenbach gets stuck into the painting. The centre is looking for more volunteers to join the team.
Turner Centre looking for volunteers
The Turner Centre in Kerikeri has begun to open up again after a long stretch of Covid restrictions.
Event bookings are filling up fast and as a result, the centre is seeking new volunteers to augment the existing volunteer community. General manager Gerry Paul said it's been a disrupted couple of years with many cancelled and postponed shows.
"We are now looking forward to a busy second half of 2022 and we have a large number of bookings coming in," he said.
Over the next few months is a puppet festival, the Upsurge Festival, Art in the Bar,
Beauty and the Beast, folk, classical and rock music, live theatre and ballet.
There is flexibility in a myriad of volunteer roles. You can choose the time put in and there's an app which allows you to sign up for the shifts that suit. Those roles include bar work, front of house, ticket scanning, box office and ongoing maintenance and handywork.
Volunteers receive full training and no experience is necessary. The centre holds quarterly social get-togethers for the volunteers.
Contact Sue for a no-obligation chat.
Phone: 09 407 0260 or 0800 200 411 Email: sue.pilling@turnercentre.co.nz
Business stalwart says au revoir
Anne Corbett has been a long-standing member of the Paihia and Kerikeri business communities over many years.
She and her husband Garth owned and ran Paihia Drive for 16 years from 1978. Following that she set up and ran Anne of Craicor in Paihia for 28 years. In 2005 she opened another Anne of Craicor in Kerikeri and ran the two stores for nine years. In 2013 she ceased trading in the Paihia shop, opting to keep the Kerikeri store.
Throughout her years in business in the area Anne has supported many events and fundraisers. She started the conversation with the Weetbix TRYathalon which became an annual event in Paihia. She was instrumental in getting the derelict Williams House back into shape and used as a library and she helped form the Friends of Williams House Group.
But it's the end of an era. Anne has sold the shop in Kerikeri to Mary Anne Waldren who is Australian but has been in Kerikeri for three years. Anne, however, won't be lost to the Paihia community. She and her husband own Craicor Boutique Apartments in Kings Road and will be involved through the tourism industry.
Russell and surrounds benefit from community funding
In March the Bay of Islands-Whangaroa Community Board granted the Russell Tennis Club $20,000 towards a new 40sq m pavilion. It is intended to provide a social hub for members and a space the community can hire for meetings and social gatherings.
In the recent round of funding, the board granted $15,000 towards concept drawing for The Strand at Russell from the board's placemaking funds. According to Manuel Gmuer-Hornell, the Russell representative on the board, the drawings are in the concept stage.
"The local community has brainstormed some things that could be included in the eventual plan, but it is early days and a few issues that are not straightforward will need some innovative thinking."
She said the concepts will be taken to the community for more in-depth discussion but already some of the ideas floated include seating, dinghy ties, waterfront beautification and traffic management (shared lanes for pedestrians and vehicles).
Other funds allocated from the board went to Rangitane Residents and Ratepayers Association, which received $5,149 to replace and update CCTV cameras, and $4,992 to the R Tucker Thompson Trust to sponsor two youths to attend a youth development voyage.
Comedian takes a swipe at the Swingers Club
Katie Boyle is one of New Zealand's most noted Shakespearean actors with 13 Elizabethan productions to her credit performed over the last eight years. Now she's doing something completely different.
In the guise of "New Zealand's favourite Nana" she's taking a, er, poke at the Swingers Club and Brothel and she's doing it in the Memorial Hall in Kaeo, the only Northland venue on her extensive countrywide tour.
The pre-publicity tells us Patricia Goldsack is an 87-year-old Nana who has toured New Zealand for the last six decades with her swingers club and brothel. She wants to make a dollar in her old age, with lots of newly formed naked friends. She explores how close two degrees is and whether that separation can be smaller.
The show features anecdotes from Pat's chequered past. The publicity didn't clarify what her chequered past was, but it did say there is audience interaction. That's in a manner of speaking, surely. It goes on to say "there are all kinds of tips and tricks, delivered with a sharp grandmotherly wit and accomplished improvisational skills".
The bordello has never seen the like and possibly neither has the Memorial Hall in Kaeo.
Katie Boyle's honours include Best Female Comedian, 2021 Comedy Hub Awards, Winner Best Comedy, 2018 Palmy Fringe Festival, Nominated Best Comedy, 2018 Nelson Fringe Festival, and Nominated Best Solo Show, 2018 Wellington Comedy Awards.
She is directed by award-winning comedian Alexander Sparrow. The show, which is supported by Arts on Tour (AOTNZ) comes with the rider as suitable for a mature audience only. Check out more at http://www.sparrowandboyle.com.
Tuesday, June 7, 7pm
Whangaroa Memorial Hall, Leigh St, Kaeo
Free entry, bookings not required
Kerikeri Pear Tree nominated for Tree of the Year
Northlanders, and others, have the chance to vote for a tree that has been part of the Kerikeri landscape for over 200 years.
Rākau o te tau / Tree of the Year Aotearoa is an opportunity to highlight significant trees and what makes them important. It is inspired by the "European Tree of the Year" which is about people telling cultural tree stories.
The Kerikeri pear tree is the sole survivor of 185 fruit trees and grape vines planted by Rev John Butler at the time the Kerikeri Mission Station was established in 1819. As such, it is the oldest surviving exotic tree in New Zealand and is into its third century of life. It is registered number 668 on the New Zealand Tree Register.
The notable Kerikeri landmark has survived the musket wars, the threat of fire and several major floods over the past two centuries. It literally comes from good stock, according to the Manager of the Kerikeri Mission Station, Liz Bigwood.
"It's likely that the tree originated from Mission chief Samuel Marsden's Paramatta Estate in Australia and was planted as part of the need to establish food crops and orchards when Butler was establishing the Church Missionary Society mission at Kerikeri.
"Many of Marsden's fruit trees from his Paramatta orchard were in turn sourced by no less a person that Sir Joseph Banks in 1803. Botanically speaking, our pear tree has an impressive whakapapa."
Today, the pear tree is almost entirely hollow but still going strong. Liz Bigwood says pear trees are the longest-lived of all the fruit trees and it's not uncommon for them to hollow out.
To nominate and vote for the greatest trees in the country. Voting closes 31 May 2022.
https://www.treeoftheyear.co.nz/2022-trees/kerikeri-pear
Initial construction work on the next section is set to begin by the end of next year.