The Community Garden‘s thriving

It has been a fantastic start to the Community Garden in Martinborough. On Sunday 12th November the first gardening day took place. With the help of some keen workers, four raised beds were sited, prepared and planted. Tyres were also utilised as planting space and two pumpkin mounds were started. Tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkin, silverbeet, spinach, lettuce, basil, beans, carrots and other vegetables and herbs were planted. At the end of the day, tea and coffee were shared to celebrate a successful start to the garden.

Since then regular garden days are underway (Wednesdays 10-noon and Sundays 2-4pm) General gardening duties such as weeding and watering are carried out along with maintenance, one of the most recent tasks being a wind barrier to protect the garden from the famous Martinborough nor’westerly! We encourage all community members to come on down if they can, it is a fun and relaxed environment and is great to be a part of.
As the produce is ready it will be making it’s way down to the larder at the Medical Centre. If you would like fresh, free, organic produce be sure to pop in for supplies. … Continue Reading

SOUTH WAIRARAPA REBUS CLUB

PHIL HOLDEN – LION FOUNDATION

Our speaker was Phil Holden of Greytown. Before he left Auckland for the South Wairarapa, Phil was Chief Executive of the Lion Foundation, charged with responsibility for overseeing the distribution and application of over $30 million per year of pokie machine profits to needy charities. The Lion Foundation is one of New Zealand’s oldest Charitable Trusts. Since 1988 they have returned over $850 million back to the community, supporting thousands of good causes all around New Zealand from Northland to Bluff, east coast to west, rural and urban.

The Lion Foundation has venues and gaming machines across the country and consistently returns millions of dollars into the local communities through Lion’s Regional Grants Committees which are intended to ensure that local people make local decisions about local funding.

In 1983 the Lange government introduced legislation to make gaming machines available for charitable purposes only. The Lion Foundation was set up to organise community grants from gaming machine proceeds. The grants were divided into four categories: sport, health, education and community. A very good system was put in place of how the grants were to be managed. This was highly regulated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. … Continue Reading

It’s 1957 – the Nurse’s story

It’s 1957, the year the Russians scare the West by launching the Sputnik. It’s also the same year 18 year old Jo Leach (now McCauley) leaves Martinborough to begin training as a nurse at Palmerston North Hospital.

Sixty years later Jo’s back in Martinborough along with others from that same intake. They’ve remained friends all this time, meeting up every few years around New Zealand and Australia, where some now live.

I catch up with up with them at the Claremont Motel. I am a serious disappointment. They thought “Chris” would be an attractive young man, not a woman nearer their own age! They swallow their disappointment and entertain me with stories from their training days and their subsequent careers.
The rules sound draconian by contemporary standards. “We worked six days a week, had to be in bed by 11pm and we didn’t need to worry about what to wear each day. It was uniforms from morning till night: one for the ward; a different one for lunchtime (a whole half hour); and yet another one to wear in the Nurses’ Home when you were off duty. “ It wasn’t advisable to get too romantically involved either. “If you married you had to leave the course”. Professional standards were instilled by formidable Ward Sisters and Matrons, often ex-Army nurses who’d served overseas during the war. … Continue Reading

Country Dog. City Dog