Library news

Library debuts Click-and-Collect service

Need something to read, and can’t make it into a library? Try the new Click-and-Collect service from Martinborough Library! Our service is modeled on those many big retailers offer to speed up your shopping trip, but with two great options to best serve all our customers: 

• You Choose: Reserve the items you want from our online catalogue and a pick-up time, and we’ll have a bag of your chosen books waiting for you at the front door. 
• We Choose: Can’t access the online catalogue, or just tired of picking your books? Use the We Choose option and we’ll select the titles for you.

For more information, visit wls.org.nz/clickandcollect, give us a call, or drop by the library today.

Celebrate Waitangi Day with two new exciting nonfiction reads:

Kia Whakanuia te Whenua: People Place Landscape, ed. by Carolyn Hill. This Maori-led collection of visual essays, papers, poetry, and polemics aims to challenge the way we think about the environment in a changing world. With bold new approaches to land use, city planning, and the identity of landscape, this vital anthology aims to shake off our complacency and encourage us to truly listen to the land of Aotearoa. … Continue Reading

Inner Wheel South Wairarapa

Outward Bound Korowai Course 2021 Celebrations

South Wairarapa Inner Wheel Club donated $500 towards this course.

The outward bound Korowai course returnees celebration was held on 18th November, two of our members attended. The Korowai Course is specifically for Y12 students from Wairarapa Secondary schools, each school sends two students.

The students we spoke to said how the course helped to build their confidence, self-worth and how it gave them whole of life skills.

Two students spoke to the parents and sponsors. They spoke from the heart when saying they felt the Wairarapa group was a special group due to the closeness they had for each other and support the community in the Wairarapa. They felt that they had formed strong friendships and bonds for life.

One of their tasks was to run a half marathon, something none of them had done before, at the end of which they all agreed it was something they wouldn’t want to repeat. However after they had returned to the Wairarapa they contacted one another and decided to go for a run. They have now started training for the “Round the Bays” 2022 to fund raise for future Outward Bound Courses. This is impressive and rewarding to hear. … Continue Reading

Give us your news

Don’t rely on word of mouth.

The year’s first Star is a good opportunity to remind the reasoning behind the Star’s being established fifteen years ago was to provide the community with a regular platform to share news and information – to let the community know what’s happening and going to happen. 

However we do rely on the community providing us with their news. 

Being run by volunteers limits the amount of time team members can collect news and conduct interviews. To really succeed the Star relies on input from every body. Both general interest and club or group news.

It can be of particular value in providing publicity for groups, clubs and organisations. So often we hear tales from club members worrying about their dwindling numbers. And on the other hand of people saying ‘I’d like to have joined that club if I had known it existed’. 

Feedback shows that the great majority of Martinborough people fully read ‘their’ Star. Would you like them to know about your club?  All you have to do is give us your copy by the last Wednesday of each month. We would love to publish it for you, along with any interest items of general interest. 

Getting there

Up until the 1950s people seldom left town. Only one family in three had a car and public transport was very slow, beside which everything required was available in town. Many people had been born, educated, married and then worked in the same town. Some had never ventured to Wellington. 

There were rail travel services if required but these required getting to Featherston first. There was one daily Martinborough to Wellington service, Wally Marflat’s service car which went to Wellington and returned each day. Along with passengers he also carried parcels to Wellington and Featherston and back to Martinborough on the return.. 

These included Tip Top ice cream for a couple of shops from Tip Top’s first small Wellington factory. The ice cream was carried in heavy canvas and kapok bags known as sleeves which kept it very well.

Service cars such a Wally Marflat’s were the main providers of long distance road travel. They were stretched cars with two or three extra rear doors each opening to a bench seat. They also had a large luggage compartment behind these. … Continue Reading