Meet Gideon!
MEET GIDEON 👋🏼 our Neighbours Day Aotearoa Community Connector based in Te Moana-a-Toi / Bay of Plenty.
Gideon has called Mount Maunganui home since the beginning of 2020 and there's no place he'd rather be - less traffic and access to the most glorious nature in Aotearoa!
"I am an advocate for the community and believe food is what brings us together! I value the importance of food as the primary tool for the re-education of our children and how we engage with our everyday world. Oh, and I was also Masterchef 2015 Top 16 finalist, which is part of the reason I have found my purpose and calling in this food journey!" Gideon
Keen to take part in Neighbours Day Aotearoa and based in the Bay of Plenty? Gideon can support you 🙂
Flick him an email - gideon@neighboursday.org.nz
Tauranga Council-private cocktail party
So-here is the latest news. The Council is to host a private cocktail party on the waterfront (not that private then) for 150 invitees to celebrate the city's transformation and progress. The list of invitees is secret (nothing new in that with the track record of the commissioners). Can Council and the commissioners be any more tone deaf? Having a cocktail party with, I assume, canapes when :
1. We are facing a 7% rates rise in a cost of living crisis.
2. Businesses have closed because of the "progress made"
3. We continue to to suffer significant inconvenience in "orange cone
city".
4. We have 4 commissioners who tried to subvert democracy by
asking to remain as unelected overlords at Council.
But really-a private cocktail party? On the waterfront? With, presumably, gates and security guards patrolling to prevent the riff raff getting in. Tone deaf.
And the 2024 Prospa Local Business Hero is...
A huge congratulations to mother and son duo, Mary and Sam Danielson from The Puketapu Hotel.
The votes for all finalists have been tallied and they have been chosen by Neighbourly members across the country as the Prospa Local Business Hero of 2024.
The Puketapu Hotel was nominated by a local called Margaret and the nomination reads:
'On Feb 14, 2023, Cyclone Gabrielle flooded many of the rural areas. Puketapu Hotel went under perhaps half a meter of water. However, immediately Mary Danielson and her son, Sam Danielson, along with their loyal staff pulled it together to cook copious amounts of food that without electricity would have been wasted. Throughout the years many of us have been treated with a pub gathering where we can reconnect and a free meal. At Christmas there was Santa, games, gifts for kids, donated patchwork for adults, an ice cream truck and lots of camaraderie.
This February on the cyclone anniversary, they again pulled out the stops to give hundreds of us a special night. We are all tired of the cyclone cleanup and they understood that it was needed.'
Such a deserving business and team, well done Mary and Sam. And thank you to all those who voted!
Share your New Zealand music memories...
It's NZ Music Month and New Zealand really has some beautiful songs from artists that we call our own.
Whether it's April Sun in Cuba, Don't Forget your Roots, or How Bizarre or Bic Runga's 'Sway' - songs have a way of unlocking memories and evoking old feelings.
In honour of NZ Music Month, share a New Zealand song or artist that is special to you and explain why.
Type 'Not For Print' if you wish your comments to be excluded from the Conversations column of your local paper.
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