On Tuesday 4th September our main speaker was Stacey Richardson from the Tawa Residents Association and who is the leader of the Spring into Tawa festival event team. Stacey told some of the history of Spring into Tawa, its revamp in 2016, what's proposed for 2018, and some insight into the future. Spring into Tawa began in the 1990s as a community market day and at one point it had been organised by the Tawa Business Association, and later by the Tawa Progressive and Ratepayers Association, which from 2016 was known as the Tawa Residents Association. Over the years it has become a key event on the annual Tawa calendar. At the head it's about community, it helps build community resilience, an opportunity to showcase community organisations, and it is a fun day out for young and old.
In 2016, after Stacey had joined the Residents Association committee, she headed a committee to run the Spring into Tawa event and the format was revamped to work to achieve a new vision of the event becoming a significant regional event - a must do on the regional calendar. Changes included; moving the date later in the year and hopefully better weather, Main Road closed to provide more space and avoid congested footpath space, a range of entertainment offered, food trucks introduced to encourage people to come and stay a while, craft stalls added with a range of sale items from across the region, grew in size to 100 stalls in 2016 and 2107.
In 2018 the event is being held on Saturday 27th October and the event is moving to the next level; closing more of the Main Road to provide still more stall space, more stalls, open an hour longer (10am-3pm), retaining community focus, an area for FREE children's activities, wider advertising, new online web site and revamped vibrant design, and more entertainment and buskers.
In 2019 they plan to continue to increase awareness towards the vision of a regionally significant event, become more environmentally friendly, and add new and innovative events. And in 2020 their plan is to have a 20 years celebration of Spring into Tawa.
Although Spring into Tawa is not run to make a profit they have in the past been able to make a small contribution to a charity cause from their small surplus from stall fees and fundraising from grants and sponsorship. This year they have decided to ask the community to choose by voting for their choice of organisation between; Tawa Community Patrol, Tawa MenzShed or Tawa Youth and Families Trust. You can read more about these great organisations on the Spring into Tawa website here: https://springintotawa.nz/local%20support?src=nav. Go to the Spring into Tawa FaceBook page https://www.facebook.com/SpringIntoTawa/ to vote and have your say. Voting is open until 30 September.
We Need YOU. Spring into Tawa are also looking for more volunteers to help setup and pack-down on the day. And they also need us all to spread the word among our own circle of friends and social media about the event - Saturday 27th October.
We also heard from our RYE student Olivia Goodridge from Canada, with her formal introduction speech. Olivia educated us on the pronunciation of Newfoundland as "Noof'n land". Olivia is from the city of St John's, the capital city of the province of Newfoundland, with a population of 118,000. A favourite place for Olivia is Cape Spear, the most easterly place in Newfoundland and North America, and their holiday cabin at Brigus Junction.
From St John's to NZ is some 16,000 km, almost the other side of the world. And whereas Wellington might be the windiest city in the world, St John's is the 3rd windiest city in the world, and the foggiest, snowiest, wettest, and most cloudy city in Canada, but because of its maritime location as the wildest winter of any Canadian City - so Olivia feels right at home in Wellington.
The economy of Newfoundland has changed significantly from the cod industry days prior to the fishery collapse due to over fishing in the 1990s, to where nowadays the economy is powered by service industries, iron ore mining, oil exploration, and manufacturing.
Olivia's interests include hiking, biking, and hanging out with friends in hammocks, and in winter, skating, sking and sliding. For sports she plays football, runs cross country, and her special interest is in aerial circus arts (air silks, hoop, and trapeze).
Olivia's family comprise her parents, an older brother and two older sisters. Her father works for ExxonMobil in the oil industry and her mother is a retired teacher. For 6 years they lived in Woodlands, near Houston, Texas, but had moved back to St John's prior to Olivia coming to New Zealand.
Olivia had initially learned about Rotary while living in Texas when she belonged to an Interact Club at her school, and she continued with Interact when they returned to St John's school where she was the secretary. St John's is in Rotary district 7820.
Also present this evening were - left to right - inbound RYE student Johnny Chen from Taiwan (hosted by Takara Club, Palmerston North), inbound RYE student Alyza Szlapka from France (hosted by Milson Club, Palmerston North), Outbound RYE student Jordon Mumby from Tawa, and Inbound RYE student Olivia Goodridge (hosted by Tawa Club).
Pat Waite concluded the evening with an amusing sergeant's session about books he had found in the culling of Book Fair books. Mark Carrol won the New World Tawa meat pack raffle.