Martinborough Music Festival

Bridget Douglas.

“What a performance, what a programme! New Zealand has a new top notch chamber music festival! “ Charlotte Wilson, Reviewer Middle C, 2019 MMF. Clearly the musicians and programme are the two leading components of a chamber music festival.

Co- Artistic Directors for the MMF Vicki Jones and Wilma Smith have hit on a winning formula for the Festival – they always sell out. Vicki begins with the musicians “The calibre of the musicians is paramount. It doesn’t matter how wonderful the repertoire is if it is not beautifully and convincingly played. It matters too that we invite musicians who are great people as well as being wonderful players”. The Festival’s preference is to invite individual musicians rather than established groups “because we want them to enjoy the experience of working with different people.” There are no concerns about whether they will be able to play the programmes because they are all high calibre musicians.

For repertoire, “it is a question of programming music [the musicians] will enjoy playing, and that our audiences will enjoy listening to” – the programmes must be of an appropriate length and have contrast. Above all else they must have beauty. … Continue Reading

Martinborough Lions news

Committee 2021-2022.

Finally, Lions Changeover happened on Wednesday 14th July, held at Parehua. The Staff did us proud. 53 members and guests attended.

Margaret Bush has taken over as President from Joe Howells, Barbara Gavin as First Vice-president, and Belinda Jorgensen is Second Vice-president. Stuart McGrigor takes on the job of Club Secretary for a second term. Terry Blacktop stays as Treasurer, and  Ray Lind, our oldest member has handed over  Club Almoner job to Tom Bunny

The Induction was performed by Gary Pickering of Masterton. Nine members were inducted into their new positions for the year. The next three years will see Lions with an all female leadership.

The Raffle winners were;

1^st prize Sue Sutherland

2^nd prize Veronica Hawkins

3^rd prize Penny Bargh

Wayne Heath from Masterton provided music throughout the evening,

Donald &Wendy Walker from Carterton gave us a most enjoyable demonstration of rock and roll dancing, and were joined by some of the members. This ended a very successful evening.

Martinborough Lions Meet every 2^nd and 4th Wednesdays of each month at the Lions Den, Oxford Street Martinborough from 6pm.

Men and women of all ages are welcome to come along and check us out and learn about what Lions do in the community. Contact Margaret Bush; Club President; Email; bushmargaret13@gmail.com phone 0276685896 or Terry Blacktop, 06 3068568 if you are interested in joining.

Maree’s musings

FROM OUT THERE …

Space travel’s been in the news lately. Of course, it’s nothing new, but just now when any sort of travel is out of bounds for most mortals [thanks, Co-vid], the thought of going very far away appeals. Way back in 1961, Yuri Gagarin was the first person to orbit the earth and just eight years later, walking on the moon became A Thing. 

And as I write, less than a month has passed since Jeff Bezos with his guests flew his very own rocket 106km above the earth, following Richard Branson nine days before. ‘Best day ever!’ was Bezos’ comment when he landed. In fact the trip lasted only ten minutes, give or take; which was not really much time to reflect on the mess the ‘blue marble’ they temporarily left behind is in.

I’m sure it would have been impossible to see forests on fire or the odd flood [gosh, we had one or two at the time] even if they had been looking instead of enjoying zero gravity and focussing on avoiding orbiting space junk. Our own little islands would have been hard to spot, especially under those rain clouds. And what about the vast areas of land destroyed and not capable of sustaining life? The war zones. Places ravaged by Co-vid. Sad.

Future jaunts are inevitable. There are already space stations with crews on board planned to keep the ISS one, launched 22 years ago, company. All in the name of scientific research, or possibly with a military purpose. That’s worrying. You’d think we have enough strife going on down here without adding ‘space squabbles’ to the mix!  … Continue Reading

Letters – Community Boards

Recently my husband and I took up the invite from the Mayor, June edition of the Martinborough Star, to attend a Community Board Meeting in Martinborough.  We attended a meeting on Thursday 8 July 2021.  The Martinborough Community Board held an extremely good meeting with a full house of public attendance. 

We witnessed a variety of locals speaking on their concerns relating to the South Wairarapa District Council and their community.  Genuine grass roots issues being brought to the elected members table for consideration.

The June edition had the Mayor calling for public opinion of the functionally of the Community Board.  Our opinion, which we took from the meeting; the importance of a Community Board, setting a platform for members of the public to highlight their issues, where else could this happen if not for the Community Board?  

We listened to at least an hour of complaints from roading with a key focus on Hinakura, street and square lighting, the proposed Martinborough Innovating Streets Program, proposed rates rise, rubbish bag price rise, Councils lack of public consultation, communication, and transparency to people questioning Council’s performance and accountability.  It made for a fascinating and informative meeting.  We had no idea there was this much unease in the Martinborough community with relation to Council. … Continue Reading