South Wairarapa Rebus Club

Those attending our last meeting heard a fascinating address from Wayne Poutoa, Director of the Youth Village in Carterton, an organisation that provides accommodation, community and work for young men and women in need, aged 15 to 24.

Wayne is a former gang member who has done time behind bars. A kind guide helped him to see the need for change in his life and he started working within the Baptist church with disadvantaged youth in Porirua. It was during this period that President Kay Paget worked with him, setting up a number of accessible community and computer centres for underprivileged young people in the area.  

In 2016 he came to Carterton as a pastor in the Baptist church and saw the potential of the land owned by the church there for a continuation of his youth work. He and his wife Jennifer set up a youth community drop-in centre in an existing building on the site. Then they found sponsorship and raised funds for six small cottages on the property to provide somewhere for some young folk at risk to call home, a very topical and pressing community need, working with kids who could easily get into criminal activities and join gangs. 

The six small cabins are fully furnished. Three cabins, at $15,000 each, were donated and three were built with money raised in the community. Most supplies for the fit-out were donated by Carterton and Masterton businesses and supporters. The cabins were finished in February 2020, just before the first Covid lockdown. The village has communal kitchen, laundry, bathrooms. … Continue Reading

Recycling days

Wednesday 12 th October Wheelie Bin 

Wednesday 19 th October Glass

Thursday 27 th October Wheelie Bin

Martinborough Business Association

We all love the Martinborough community and know it is a great place to settle, live and work. .But what happens when you are trying to attract a workforce to come and enjoy all of the benefits we do? Well, there’s an almost insurmountable challenge of finding suitable and affordable accommodation either transitional or permanent.

This is not a new problem, but it has resurfaced again with the lifting of many of the Covid-19 measures, borders opening up, the resultant increase in visitor traffic, and the high season.

With the shortage of a work-ready local labour force some of our members have or have attempted to recruit staff from further afield but then run into accommodation availability and affordability problems.

We know Martinborough has a high number of rentals in the weekend rental market ( Air BnB and the like). Some business owners have taken theirs out of this market and made those available for staff rentals. There is a reluctance by owners to go into the longer-term rental market for many (and valid) reasons. … Continue Reading

Maree’s Musings

to COIN a PHRASE …

Being both a writer and a fan of a decent chinwag, I suppose it’s not surprising that I take much delight in the many ways we have of expressing ourselves. When you think about it, turns of phrase frequently slip off one’s tongue like water off a duck’s back, yet people can usually suss out what you’re rabbiting on about. And of course effective communication only works when your listener (read reader – you, in this case) cottons on. I also hope that when it comes to the crunch, that despite not being mindblowing, my musings are right up your alley. Fingers crossed!

I confess, when push comes to shove, writing sometimes resembles heavy lifting. But occasionally there’s those lightbulb moments when putting pen to paper produces the finished article, give or take, in two shakes of a dead lamb’s tail. This centuries old expression bugged me. Live lambs do wag their tails after all, but dead ones? However, there’s a sequel. During the 1940s’ Manhattan Project designed to produce nuclear weapons, scientists involved needed to define tiny units of time for reaction sequences. One chap, maybe a bit of a wag himself, chose ‘shake’ to refer to ten billionths of a second. Golly! That’s considerably faster than the blink of an eye, and totally unlike watching paint dry, which makes  your eyes glaze over. 

It may be a Kiwi thing, but sheep are big news in the metaphor metaverse. It’s not good to pull the wool over someone’s eyes, for example; as then they can’t see the wood for the trees. And what about ‘a bit of a dag’? In fact, this may have been pinched from our Aussie mates, but fair cop. There’s pavlova, togs etc, after all. … Continue Reading