As someone exposed to stories of hardship on a daily basis, Vanessa Hammond says she sometimes sees life in Wanaka differently from others.Vanessa is a public health researcher with a unique perspective on the Upper Clutha community from her seven years conducting local health and social research.Digging deeper into hard topics like mental health, alcohol abuse, and housing hardship is important, Vanessa says, because information about the challenges people face in our community helps organisations to advocate for the most vulnerable.Vanessa, who was raised in Canterbury, completed an MA in public health from the University of Otago before applying her research skills to studying didymo. She earned a PhD in freshwater ecology, but decided public health was her real interest, and embarked on an academic career in the discipline.Vanessa was doing well and publishing her work when she attended a seminar on women academics. She didn’t like the stories she heard about long hours and little family time. Reconsidering her career choice coincided with a move to Wanaka with her husband and two young children in 2011.Vanessa started working as a public health analyst for the Southern District Health Board (SDHB) the same year, and now her work revolves around the SDHB and her work as a consultant for the Wanaka Alcohol Group (WAG) and Wanaka Community Networks.All her work feeds into establishing a longitudinal evidence base (a research design that involves repeated observations of the same issues) in the Upper Clutha community that agencies can use to advocate for their clients.WAG’s vision is for a longitudinal survey, which Vanessa says “is pretty amazing”. So far Vanessa has undertaken an initial survey of Mount Aspiring College students in 2016, repeated in 2018. Another researcher surveyed parents in 2017, and Vanessa will repeat that survey next month.“That’s a really important survey, because you get only half the story by surveying students,” she said. “Alcohol is so normal in Wanaka and Queenstown, and we have a sense that parents have a lot of peer pressure.”“The problem with studying alcohol in general is everyone drinks, no one thinks they’ve got a problem, so everyone’s on the defensive,” she said, adding that the public health challenge is “shifting the mean” of drinking behaviour through changing attitudes. WAG is doing its bit by promoting alcohol-free events and health education work with students and parents.Vanessa is also working with Community Networks to create a ‘social services snapshot’ of the community. The snapshots will be compiled every six months: the baseline survey was undertaken in February, and the next will be in August. The survey involves seeking information from “key informants” - 45 social service organisations. Repeating the snapshot every six months will allow Community Networks to track progress, monitor trends, and identify emerging issues.“In the last snapshot the real standout was poor mental health and lack of mental health services,” Vanessa said, The snapshot shows the most common issues faced by clients of social services were poor mental health, financial hardship, social/relationship/family problems and lack of affordable housing. It reflects the hundreds of people who use social services here each month.“For some people it’s really hard to be here,” she said. “There’s a national trend all the social services are talking about: an increase in complexity of needs. People used to present with one or two issues; now people have so many problems, it’s hard to help them.”Vanessa said her networks agree the problems have been present for about 15 years; they have been exacerbated in the past five years, and even more so in the past year.“I think we’ve all become more vulnerable,” she said, citing increasing housing costs, increased personal debt, and worsening employment conditions.This year alone, services have seen more people accessing their KiwiSaver to pay their bills than they’ve seen in the past two years, she said.“What I hear from my work are constant stories like that.”Her current project for the SDHB is a housing survey - a qualitative project drawing on the insights of 25 key informants including police, government and non-government agencies, and schools.Vanessa has just completed a housing survey for Central Otago and is about to start surveying Queenstown Lakes.What she learned from the Central Otago survey was “humbling and disturbing”, she said, and she expects Wanaka’s situation to be “similar in seriousness but different in their nature”.The district’s housing shortage affects people’s financial and mental health, children’s performance at school, and much more.“The biggest impact is on mental health. People are living in hardship because they’re prioritising their rent,” she said.Working more to survive financially means less time at home - “a massive loss of quality of life”.“People come for the lifestyle and all they get is the view,” she said.To those who say “if you can’t afford to live here, move away,” Vanessa says: “We should be working on having equitable and inclusive communities.”Housing is a top priority, she says. “What we need is really warm, well-designed, climate-proof homes so we don’t end up with an air pollution problem. Housing should be a pillar of economic strategy. We need to think about strong housing policies, including at a council level.”And after more than seven years researching our social issues, Vanessa believes people in the Upper Clutha need to accept growth - as long as it’s managed well.“For my own well being I had to make peace with development, otherwise I’d be frustrated all the time,” she said.“We’ve reached a ceiling for what we can currently sustain. When we get our new supermarket and roundabout etc it will improve. But people need to accept that we have a housing problem, and for the community to be sustainable we need more housing, and different types of housing.”The usual understanding of homelessness is people living in public places, and that’s happening in Cromwell and Alexandra, she said, as well as “people living in garages with their kids”.Overcrowding and “hot bedding” (where multiple tenants share beds or bedrooms in shifts) are also issues Vanessa expects to find here. She already knows there are “a lot of people living in vans at their workplaces in Wanaka”.From her perspective “at the sharp end of the stick” it’s important for Vanessa to make the effort to take time out.Just looking at her “happy, healthy children” helps her maintain perspective and balance, as well as family hiking and “stacks of yoga”.Contact Community Networks to read the full baseline Upper Clutha Social Services Snapshot.PHOTO: Supplied

A combination of perfectionism, creativity, determination - and an adventurous streak - have all helped Alice Herald build a career and life that she loves.Her gusto has taken her all over the world, but she has landed in Wanaka, where she lives, works and plays.Alice’s eponymous bespoke jewellery brand is a culmination of many years spent honing her craft, and from her base in Wanaka she manages suppliers and liaises with clients all over the world.She’s also a wife and a mum to two young children; she skis, runs, plays tennis and gets into nature whenever she gets the chance.If her life sounds busy, that’s because it is, but Alice, ever-positive, has no complaints. “It’s the same as every family out there: It’s a juggle, but it’s a wicked juggle.”Alice first discovered her love of jewellery design during her gap year in Mexico, where she studied sculpture and jewellery. Her parents, however, weren’t so pleased with Alice’s pronouncement that she planned to pursue it as a career. “I come from a very traditional family,” Alice said. “A career in the arts wasn’t seen as something that was possible.”Alice went on to study jewellery design and earn a B.A (Hons) at the renowned Central Saint Martin in London. Her parents quickly became “my biggest champions and supporters”.Her university experience (where she worked with some of the very best, and standards were extremely high) helped hone Alice’s perfectionism and dedication to her work.“During my degree I worked with a company of goldsmiths and silversmiths holding royal warrants [a mark of excellence for those who have regularly supplied goods or services to members of the royal family] for several years and developed very high expectations in terms of quality and drive.”Her work was never of the commercial style, she says. “As you grow, you find yourself and gain the confidence to express yourself. If you are true to yourself and your personal style, you create a signature style and uniqueness within your work.”A need for some time out after five busy years in London gave Alice the chance to pursue her second love, sport, and she met her now-husband while skiing in Austria. The other half of this entrepreneurial duo, Jon, is the owner of Black Peak Gelato in central Wanaka.The pair moved to New Zealand together in 2004 so Jon could take a ski patrol course. Initially, there were no plans to stay long term.“We went back to Europe for a season but missed it here too much.”The pair got married, had children, bought land, and built a beautiful home, which Alice says they won’t leave until they’re wheeled out, grey and old.Alice co-founded an online engagement ring company and managed it jointly for 8.5 years until she launched her label Alice Herald in late 2016. While there were some nerves, Alice knew she wanted to create a brand that was truly her own. “If I’m going to do it, I’m going to do it really well. I’ve got some pretty wild aspirations and some totally audacious goals, but I've ticked a few off already so I’m aiming high.”Just a few short years on, Alice has a burgeoning company known for its personalisation, impeccable quality and attention to detail. Her bespoke pieces, which make up the majority of Alice’s work, are refined again and again with the client until each piece tells the story of its owner and how it came to be.“I love creating heritage pieces,” Alice said. “I want the pieces to speak of the lives of my clients and to make heirlooms that can be passed down.”Even though her jeweller, diamond and gem suppliers, CAD contractors (who make her traditional 2D sketched designs into 3D), foundry and many clients are overseas, working from Wanaka is “not a problem”, and Alice can pick up and work from wherever she happens to be. “There’s FaceTime, there’s Skype - you can still make it a really personal experience with clients.”Trips to Auckland every two months to see clients and attend events give Alice the “cultural hit” she loves, but living in Wanaka feels right - “I’m definitely a country girl at heart”.“I love going to the city, seeing the art and architecture, but I need the air and space to breathe and create.”Having grown up in the countryside in England, Alice now gets to see her own children enjoy the same type of rural childhood she had. A “big skiing family”, the four spend lots of time outdoors and in the mountains. The lifestyle is an ideal mix, Alice said.“You can have a couple of hours skiing, come home and work on some designs and be there to pick up the kids from school. Pretty special really.”Find Alice Herald here.PHOTO: Supplied

Mal, 59, has been exploring the outdoors since his childhood climbing 'munros' (mountains more than 3,000 feet tall) in Scotland with his dad. He feels most at home in the mountains.That is, in its essence, why Mal decided to move to Wanaka in his 50s. After ditching his corporate career in Auckland and spending time climbing peaks whenever he could, he decided to make his home in the mountains.Mal is climbing all these peaks to raise money for mental health awareness. PHOTO: Supplied“We moved here simply because we love mountains and the lifestyle they afford adventurous people like ourselves,” he says of himself and his wife and fellow mountain runner, Sally Law.They came for the mountains but they stayed for the people. Mal and Sal are behind a weekly trail runners club (it includes a run along the Clutha and a beer or two on a Tuesday evening) and are fully involved in multiple aspects of the community.“Besides the obvious love of the local geography, we love the fact that everybody here is so positive and happy, I guess because they want to be here, not somewhere else - as was very much the case when we lived in Auckland,” he said.All his favourite childhood - and adulthood - memories come from time spent up in the mountains, leaving all his worries down here at sea level. That’s exactly how he’s spending this year. Still, this project means he has spent the best part of this year walking and running uphill, which means putting his body through its paces.It also means Mal spends the best part of each day out in the hills, away from home and “real life”. It means a lot of things have to be put on hold and requires a great commitment from his Sally, who is the logistics master when it comes to all of Mal’s crazy ideas (and the ultimate example of that ‘behind every great man’ theory).He also counts on the help of numerous local friends who have joined him on missions up to the top of peaks around the area, and helped him spread the word to promote his cause.In fact, he is counting on the local community to help him towards this goal, whether that’s by joining him on a mission up to a peak or joining the fundraising efforts.“I’d actually like to get local businesses involved. Name a local peak that I can climb and if I do it I’ll post from the summit to thank the business and tag them on social media,” Mal says. In return, he hopes businesses will support him and the cause with a donation of $100 or more for each peak he climbs.Nearly half way through the year and well on his way to achieving his goal, the reality is that he still doesn’t know if it can truly be done. Injuries can strike at any time and wilderness can be pretty unforgiving. But then again, he says, if he knew for sure it could be done, what would really be the point of trying?To follow Mal’s journey, visit the 1 Million Feet for Mental Health Facebook page here. If you wish to make a donation, click here.

Last Friday (April 19) Rebecca Wardell arrived in Lake Hawea on her bike. But unlike the many other cyclists frequenting Hawea and its surrounds, the arrival for Rebecca marked the end of the biggest journey of her life - a 20,000km trip from Switzerland to New Zealand.“It felt very surreal to be cycling into Hawea after having thought about it for such a long time,” Rebecca said.Rebecca, who is now recuperating in Lake Hawea, arrived in town almost exactly a year after setting off from Lake Geneva, Switzerland, where she and two friends had hatched the plan for a cycling trip of a lifetime.Aiming to raise $20,000 (one dollar per kilometre) for the Forward Foundation, Rebecca, a former Olympian, set off with her two friends Emma Twigg and Sarah van Ballekom. Nineteen countries and countless stories later, Rebecca is all done - and locals have the opportunity to hear about her adventure at a talk at the Hawea Community Centre tonight (Tuesday April 23).The trip was “full of surprises,” Rebecca said. “We didn’t really know what we were letting ourselves in for. The hardest parts were things like bad road conditions, weather and finding somewhere to sleep. Many of the places we went didn’t have hotels or accommodation and we would sleep on the side of the road or on a shop floor.”The trip included more than 1,000 hours on the bike seat, and climbing mountain passes higher than 4500m. As an athlete (she competed in the heptathlon at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing), Rebecca was perhaps better prepared than most, but the adventure was still tough at times.Her favourite country from the trip was Tajikistan, where “the scenery was a bit like Central Otago but on a massive scale”. Rebecca said the people there were the poorest but also the most generous. “They had so little but they were offering us beds and having us to stay.”While the generosity of strangers was perhaps most prominent in Tajikistan, the kindness people showed was incredible throughout the trip, Rebecca said. “People would stop on the side of the road and bring us food. Some people would find us a house to stay in, have us in, feed us - so many people were so hospitable and kind.”Having surpassed the $20,000 fundraising goal for the Forward Foundation (which helps empower girls to reach their potential through sport and leadership opportunities), any surplus funds will be donated to Victim Support for the Christchurch shooting victims. Rebecca said up to 75 per cent of her trip was through Muslim communities. The people were extraordinary, she said, and this was her small way to give back. Donate here. Learn more about Rebecca’s extraordinary journey tonight at the Hawea Community Centre. The event will begin at 7pm and will include stories, imagery from the trip and a Q&A session. Entry is free.PHOTO: Supplied

A creative former local student has created a one-of-a-kind ‘Wanaka Ring’ which reflects the natural topography of the land in this unique area.Freedom Holloway and her peers came up with the idea for the Wanaka Ring during a business enterprise class at Mount Aspiring College (MAC). It was chosen as the MAC 2014 leavers’ ring, and after the school year ended, requests for the ring kept coming, so Freedom and her brother Vincent decided to continue with the project and refine the ring for a second edition - which has now launched.The design of the ring was a long and involved process, and the ring holds aspects of the mountains, lakes and rivers, and land. “We wanted to immerse ourselves in our surroundings,” Freedom said. “We took photos of the mountain lines, and the one that resonated with us most was the Black Peak mountain range, so we took that exact photo and put that mountain line into the ring. We decided to flip the range to represent the reflection of the mountains on Lake Wanaka.”Wrapping around the back of the ring is a thin pit, which represents the Clutha River/Mata-Au. “I chose this river for two reasons: historically it was a commonly-used route out of the area with its surrounding land used for Maori settlement, and simply because it holds many special memories for myself, as the designer, floating down Clutha River rapids as a kid.”The Wanaka Ring represents the area’s unique topography, which holds a special place in the designer’s heart. PHOTO: SuppliedThe third aspect of the design is the land. “When designing the second edition, I stumbled across Joe Waide’s Wanahaka [a Maori culture experience] at the waterfront,” Freedom said. “I came back to watch it again the next morning to film his performance and ask him about it... After speaking with Joe, I realised the importance of including a feature that acknowledges the land and its history. The coordinates of Wanaka engraved on the inside of the ring recognise this.”Freedom initially gained knowledge of jewellery making through Aspiring Jewellers in Wanaka, and had her ring brought to life by The Village Goldsmith in Wellington.Despite now being based in Wellington, where she studies fashion design at university, Freedom plans to continue to design more jewellery which represents places special to her.While specific plans are still under wraps, developing her concept further is “something I’m really excited about,” Freedom said. “We have some amazing plans and are about to start discussions with a number of partners.”Learn more about Freedom’s company, Silver Compass, or the Wanaka Ring, here. Wanaka App readers can use the code ‘MyWanaka’ at checkout for an exclusive discount.

Peter Hendriks was a sick child.He spent most of his younger years in and out of hospitals and health camps due to his chronic asthma. He remembers a teacher telling him he was “too dumb” to pursue his dream and join the air force. Pilots have to be extremely skilful after all.Fast forward about five decades and Peter is standing by one of his aircraft, reminiscing over his 35-year career as a pilot and flight instructor.“Proved them wrong,” he says, triumphantly.Over his long career, he’s drawn shapes over the country many times over. His passion isn’t just for flying: he loves showing people the beauty of New Zealand, and Wanaka in particular, from up near the clouds.This coming Thursday, for ANZAC day, he will do the same thing he’s done on every April 25 over the past 30 years: a commemorative flyover in his Tigermoth between the Hawea and Wanaka dawn parades.“I am a firm believer that a lot of these guys sacrificed their lives for us to have the freedom that we have today and we just offer a small part in having an old airplane that was involved in some of our conflicts earlier on,” he said.The Tigermoth was used by all Commonwealth countries during World War II. It was first designed in the mid 30s then used by Commonwealth countries training their pilots before they went to war.This particular one, Hendriks’ pride and joy, was built by Morris Motors at the start of the 1930s and shipped to New Zealand, where it's spent its career, flying out of Dunedin and Ashburton.“It’s got a really good military history and trained a lot of pilots during that time,” Peter said.“For us to utilise it during ANZAC [day]; it’s something we get to do every year that adds to the dynamics of the celebration.”This year pilots are taking two Tigermoths to fly over Tarras, Bannockburn, Lowburn and Cromwell.“Anybody over 90 gets to fly in it for free. Most of those guys either fought in the war or knew someone who did,” he said.“We also always take another young person with us. This year I’m taking a young boy by the name of Timo, whose parents are the Wanaka bread people [The People’s Bread] who do the bread for the celebrations. So they get an idea of what it’s like.”Peter has been doing ANZAC parades for 30 years in various locations. He started in Gore when he lived there, and also did some in Auckland when he was working there in the police force. And now in Wanaka, where he has contributed to every ANZAC parade in the past 16 years.Peter is a flight instructor and a commercial pilot. He spends most of his days flying helicopters and is also a flight examiner, doing a lot of examinations around the South Island. Two days a week, he’s also a training manager for pilots at Queenstown Airport.“It’s always been a passion, since being a young child,” he said. “There’s no family connection, it’s just something I had an inkling to do.”From Wanaka, he runs his company NZ Fly Adventures, alongside his wife Julie. The couple’s five children all love flying but have all pursued their own individual interests. “They’re carving their own path,” he said.Peter’s goal is to show off Wanaka and his “incredible backyard”.He knows not everyone loves seeing the planes whiz past in the sky. While there are often complaints about the noise from the airport, he said, pilots are just ordinary people who “want to share our backyard in a different way”.Peter is passionate about Wanaka and wants to see the community navigate the hurdles that come with change in the best possible way. He is critical of what he calls “some of the loudest voices” against change, in particular the potential expansion of Wanaka Airport.“Wanaka as a town has no idea what’s coming. Some of it is positive, some of it is negative. But change is coming,” he said. “Provided it’s done properly and not just a five-minute wonder but actually with some thought into this district over the next 50 years then it can be good. But it has to be done with proper planning, with transport and local structure.”Peter believes there is a lack of understanding of what’s going to happen and that is causing a degree of frustration.“Those who cry the loudest are the first people who are quite happy to go to Queenstown and hop on a jet and fly to Auckland or overseas,” he said.“Wanaka is growing and, when we have growth, there are consequences. No parking, noise, queues in supermarket… it’s all part of it. It needs to be managed, of course. It needs to be mitigated but we can’t just get rid of it. We need to find common ground.”Peter encourages everyone to express their views and concerns on the Wanaka Airport website.“One or two voices won’t make a difference,” he said, calling on the community to work together towards sustainable growth, rather than shutting ideas down.“We have to have more tolerance and patience. Our livelihood relies on tourism. Not just that of tourism operators. We all need tourists, one way or another.”Peter said, no matter what happens in the future, he will always love Wanaka.“I love it here. I do a fair bit of travelling but every time I drive over the hill from Queenstown and see the lake, it’s a special feeling,” he said with a smile.“And when you see it from the air, you can see how special it is. All the problems down here, all the bickering stays on the ground."“Flying is good for the soul.”PHOTO: Wanaka App

Taking organic food from a “hippy enclave to middle-of-the-road organic store” has been a labour of love for Wanaka’s Paul O’Hara, who clocked up 20 years at the helm of Soulfood Organic Store last month.Twenty years ago there was nowhere to buy organic food in Wanaka, and Paul saw the opportunity to set up a store after he realised Wanaka was his “soul’s home”.Paul, who has a science degree and teacher training qualification, had lived in Wanaka for a few years in the early 1990s, after he moved here to help his friend Mac set up Kai Whakapai. After a few months at Kai, Paul gravitated to nearby Pembroke Mall, joining a group of locals establishing a New Age shop called Centre of the Universe. In those days Wanaka had a lot of unemployment and under-employment. “There was quite a scene of young, alternative spiritual people,” Paul said.Paul was already an astrologer, and the Centre of the Universe was his training ground. He discovered astrology after the suicide of his father, and after realising teaching was not his calling. He had a chart reading with a North Island astrologer, who went on to train him.It may seem odd for a science graduate to delve into astrology, but Paul says: “I approached astrology from a scientific point of view. It made sense that the planets affected us. We might not understand it, but humans don’t understand everything.”After a few years Paul moved to Auckland to become a professional astrologer, a “heady” role he undertook for two years before the need for “a real job” became clear. His next role was as a carer for IHC (which provides services to people with intellectual disabilities and their families).“I was thrown in the deep end,” he said. “It really brought me into my body, into physical reality. I learnt a lot about human beings, about the mind and the heart.”While on a holiday to Wanaka in 1998, Paul, who had been “getting into organics” in the North Island, experienced a heartfelt pull. “My Soul said to me, you need to move back here, this is where you need to be.”He needed a job though, and hit upon setting up an organics store. With help from the Centre of the Universe Trust, he and a few supportive friends set up shop in Pembroke Mall. Paul lived in his van behind the shop, with his cat and dog, for the first couple of months - with the Wanaka police keeping an eye on him.Soulfood had been open for just eight months when the big flood of November 1999 hit. “Water was waist deep in the shop. We had no insurance,” Paul said. Simon Cassie, Greg Inwood, Kerryn Easterbrook and many others moved everything out by boat - and no stock was lost.The group moved Soulfood into the foyer of Cinema Paradiso (in its original location on Ardmore Street) for a few months until the shop was rebuilt. “Calum MacLeod was very generous.”But Paul had decided the shop needed a new location, and when The Paper Place on Ardmore St closed down Soulfood moved up the road. Paul proposed the group buy the shop from the Centre of the Universe Trust to finance the move. Greg Inwood, Ben Elms, and Matthew Murchie joined Paul when Soulfood became a company, Pataka (storehouse in Maori) Wanaka Ltd, in 2003.Matthew was chef for a few months before moving out of town; chief coffee maker Greg got cabin fever after two years and went landscaping; Ben left town temporarily (he is now the famous Dr Compost). Paul bought them out one by one.The shop was struggling but Paul said the decision to keep going felt right. “I’m not one for giving up.” He kept up astrology readings and Te Reo teaching on the side (he took Maori studies at Massey).Living without power or phone (on a patch of land near the Cardrona River), eating shop left-overs, and using his bike for transport, Paul’s expenses were literally “next to nothing”. He kept the shop afloat this way until 2010.Things were already tight when a new landlord increased the rent. Paul endured two years of pressure from the landlord, who wanted Soulfood and its “long-haired hippy” proprietor out.It led Paul to take a “good hard look” at the business. He got rid of the coffee machine, stopped making daily bread, and focused on the shop. It worked: within 12 months the business was doing quite well, and within two years it was doing really well. In 2015 he took on the space upstairs to sell healthcare, body care and medicinal products.For years, people had been asking Paul to set up Soulfood over the hill, and in 2015 Paul began negotiations to establish Soulfood Queenstown, which recently opened in Frankton.His focus is now on “solidifying” the Queenstown business, and he says Soulfood Wanaka may be moving to a new location with better parking - although this is still in the conceptual phase.In the past 20 years Paul has seen organics go from niche to mainstream.“It’s no longer a fringe thing. When we first opened, you couldn’t get anything organic anywhere else in Wanaka.”Ironically, he’s “not a staunch organics person”. “Just because it’s certified organic doesn’t mean it’s healthy, and just because it’s not certified organic doesn’t mean it’s unhealthy. Food is one part of life, it’s not everything. We need to look at our whole lifestyle and build health into that.”It’s a hint at Paul’s other interests: his adherence to the Universal Medicine philosophy of life, his move away from the astrology he knew, and his return to a love of science. Paul now writes about science and nature (see his views on quantum mechanics here), and says he has moved from looking outside himself for meaning, to looking within to his own heart. Paul’s beliefs and values have an impact on the way he operates the 20-year-old business of Soulfood, he says. “It’s about people, it’s about respect.”PHOTOS: Wanaka App

The World Economic Forum last year published a report stating more than 50 per cent of the globe’s workers were going to need some form of re-training in the next three years. “That’s a massive number,” says Wanaka local Mark Verbiest, one of New Zealand’s most experienced company directors and a speaker at the Festival of Colour’s 2019 Aspiring Conversation: ‘Achieving Peak Performance in the 2020s’.“In the shorter term the forum’s report means we’ve got to get cracking with re-training programmes,” Mark says. “But in the longer term we’ve got to teach young people how to learn and re-learn. Millennials will probably have to change roles several times in their lifetime so we need to teach them how to do that. That’s got to be a foundation capability.”Mark, a fit, youthful-looking 60-year-old, has got to be one of the best people to talk to about this topic. Throughout a stellar legal and business career he has taken opportunities and kept changing and growing – and what’s more, he’s not afraid of hard work.“My parents were Dutch immigrants to New Zealand in the 50s,” he laughs. “I understand Dutch people and their directness. And I understand hard work.”After getting an LLB at Victoria University, Mark became a partner in a law firm by the age of 28 and was still with it when it merged to become Wellington’s highly regarded Simpson Grierson. His legal career was broad. He was leading work for Brierleys, BP, NZ Treasury and the Rugby Union - in the latter case travelling to the US as part of the team to negotiate the Adidas sponsorship.Then in 2000 Telecom’s CEO Theresa Gattung (now a close friend) shoulder-tapped Mark to join the company as group general counsel. It was a new challenge and he relished it.“We had a very diverse team: Men and women, and there was an obvious power in that.”He recalls some fierce debates in Telecom senior exec meetings. “But Theresa always brought us together to go in a shared direction. And then once direction was set, we didn’t waiver or re-litigate.” Mark says one of Gattung’s great skills was choosing the right people. “And if they weren’t right, in the words of Jim Collins who wrote Good to Great, she got them off the bus really quickly. I’ve learnt the hard way,” he adds. “When you try, for all sorts of emotional reasons, to give people more time, you take longer to make decisions that are pretty obvious and you always end up wishing you’d dealt with it quickly right at the start.”Gattung gave Mark lots of opportunity to expand his skills. Aside from legal responsibility there was regulatory and public affairs work, internal audit and risk. “I had responsibility for these corporate teams, and then the comms team. Theresa put me in charge of our investment in Southern Cross Cables (our main internet cable). I was a director, and then chairman of the joint venture company that ran that.” There was also executive responsibility to deliver profits from Telecom’s international arm and the Yellow Pages business.After 2007, when Telecom was operationally separated into two following government initiatives, Mark was ready to take a step back. But his career continued to grow and change. In 2010 he became chair of Transpower and joined the board of Freightways Limited (which he now chairs), along with a couple of other companies. Then in 2011 he was offered the chairmanship of Spark and a chance to continue his work in New Zealand’s telecommunications industry.“The role of chairman involves the liaison between the board and CEO,” he says. “You’ve got to earn people’s trust, have a high degree of openness and you have got to be direct in a good way.”In 2013 Mark joined the board of ANZ Bank Limited and there have been many other roles as well - too many to mention here. “I need stimulation and I need new challenges,” Mark says of his work raison d’etre. “I don’t like being bored. I know that if something starts to look the same, within myself I’ll start to cruise. In governance roles you can’t do that.” In 2017 he stepped down from Spark and later this year he will become chairman of the Meridian Energy Board, having joined the board last year. “You look at a company like Meridian. It’s a mature company but its still got room to grow. The challenges are around technology change and climate change. That’s what motivates me. We have a heap of things we need to do in the next ten years. I like growing things,” he concludes.Today Mark has a flexible working life. If he is not traveling, there are tasks to do – emails, phone calls - from his home with its panoramic views across the lake. But he also makes time to keep his life in balance. The day the Wanaka App visited he was fresh back from a morning bike ride with his wife Sally, and as soon as our interview was finished he was off to a Pilates session.Mark won the Wanaka Ignite Chamber of Commerce’s inaugural Outstanding Individual Award and he is very conscious of supporting the place he first fell in love with when he came skiing here as a university student in 1978. “Treble Cone was just open and the T-Bars were going.”Today Mark and Sally live here permanently and Mark lends a hand to many local groups including Southern Lakes Festival Trust (Festival of Colour); more recently the Southern Alpine Rescue Trust (SARs); as well as giving the odd bit of assistance to new start-ups based in Wanaka.He is looking forward to the Aspiring Conversation panel and the chance to talk in his local community on a subject very close to his heart.“I think people underestimate how quickly things are going to change and how quickly things are accelerating. In my own profession there will be a lot less lawyers going forward because of automation and artificial Intelligence. Big chunks of legal work can be done by robots or machines, so the business model will change. “Lots of people hate change, but we shouldn’t be scared by it. We need to think how to navigate it to ensure sustainability (the research does suggest net job growth). Sustainability should be at the forefront in every sense: social, environmental, financial.“From an economic impetus point of view New Zealand needs to up its economic productivity. Its labour productivity. We’re below the OECD average. “In order to do that automation can help a lot but at the same time the economy will suffer if we leave people behind.” The ‘Achieving Peak Performance in the 2020s’ Aspiring Conversation will take place on Saturday April 6, 9am in the Pacific Crystal Palace.PHOTOS: Supplied

Laura Williamson, the Southern Lakes Festival of Colour’s general manager, could be the textbook definition of a Renaissance woman: talented, educated, and knowledgeable in many different fields. She’s arty, wordy, and sporty: in fact her only failing, according to her son Liam, is “she’s not good at being tall”.In 2017, the role of Festival of Colour general manager was up for grabs after Lindsey Schofield (the festival’s first GM) resigned. Laura had attended six festivals, every Aspiring Conversations weekend, performed at the festival (she is the co-writer, along with composer Angela Mote, of the Blue Moments song and spoken word cycle which premiered to a sold out crowd at the 2017 festival), and worked as the festival’s schools’ coordinator.Festival director Philip Tremewan, when announcing she had secured the job, summed it up well: “Laura brings great energy, warmth, intelligence and organisational skills to this demanding role.” It was just months out from the 2018 Aspiring Conversations weekend, which went on to experience unprecedented demand for tickets.Born in Quebec City, Canada, Laura was raised in Vancouver where her father was a criminal defence lawyer and her mother (also a lawyer) was an editor. Laura’s father was eventually a supreme court judge and her mother went on to teach judges how to write clearly.Laura wrote from childhood; she had poems published in the newspaper when she was at primary school, and had her first poem published in an anthology during her last year at high school.Laura with tuatara in Invercargill, while doing a travel story for Kia OraLaura also describes herself as “the biggest music nerd”: growing up, she negotiated a weekly allowance equivalent to the cost of an album. She wrote music and film reviews while studying at McGill University (she holds a BA (Honours) from McGill University, and an MA in History from the University of Toronto), and reviewed for the Groove Guide after she moved to New Zealand. Music writing remains her favourite freelance work. “It’s the most interesting challenge, to try to describe music with words.” Unfortunately, except for poetry, it’s also the least lucrative, she says.Growing with a “mountain right in the middle of the city”, Laura not only became a skilled skier but a coach and instructor for Olympic track youngsters in ski racing (both in the US and New Zealand). She is an ISIA certified alpine ski instructor and coach.Laura first visited New Zealand when she was nine (and has a clear visual memory of the confluence of the Clutha and Kawarau Rivers). New Zealand was a “beautiful, warm, happy place” she wanted to get back to, and she eventually did in 1997, at the age of 27.After spending a few winters instructing at Mt Hutt, Laura “wanted somewhere better to live year-round than Methven” and chose Wanaka. She and her then-partner moved here in 1999, a week after the big flood. The high water mark was still visible on New World’s walls.Laura’s first job was receptionist at Wanaka Medical Centre (“a great way to meet everyone in town”), working the late shift and weekends to make time for skiing at Treble Cone. After a few years she instructed at Cardrona, spending her summers at Park City Resort in Salt Lake City.Meanwhile she was writing “a little bit”; op-ed pieces for the Otago Daily Times (ODT), and a film column for the Wanaka Sun called ‘The Flick Chick’. The column morphed into a regular job at the Sun, in the days when Dave Smith was editor and the three or so employees did everything, including laying out the paper. Laura’s graphic design skills (yes, more skills) were honed on the job.Taking a break from work to have her son, Laura made a pact with herself to get something published, and achieved it with a poem about Mt Roy, which was published in the ODT. She quotes a line: “There’s a sharp line between ridge and sky, life and death, you and I.”Laura biking the Timber Trail on the North Island.After Liam was born Laura wanted a job she could enjoy and which would work with having a baby; she chose teaching and quickly and efficiently - the way she tackles everything - earned a post graduate diploma in teaching from Victoria University and secured a job at Mount Aspiring College, where she worked for ten years, splitting her time there with freelance writing.She packed a lot of work into that spare time: launching and managing ON Magazine with Annabel Wilson and Bridget Hall, editing mountain bike magazine Spoke (cycling is another of Laura’s sporting skills and passions - she has also written a book about cycling), writing for the ODT, North and South magazine, Kia Ora (Air New Zealand’s inflight magazine), The Dominion Post, The Press, The Southland Times, The Melbourne Age, Theatreview, Groove Guide, Interface Magazine, Wet Ink Magazine, Mountain Biking Australia and New Zealand Ski and Snow. She also ghost wrote other people’s memoirs as a private service, and wrote part time for the Wanaka App from its launch until December 2017.Read Laura’s Wanaka App profile of The last miner: Wattie Thompson ‘Prolific’ barely covers it, but Laura says the output was partly from financial necessity. “I’ve always needed to write a certain amount to supplement my income in order to live here.” She can quickly churn out work for magazines, but says; “The creative stuff is just an itch I need to scratch.”Just over a year after taking on the Festival of Colour general manager role, Laura is relishing the challenges of running the festival, which she says “makes Wanaka such a special place”.“It’s an endlessly changing job. You do accounting, sound engineering, writing, the logistics of building sites, communications with performers, staff, patrons, and the public.”Another plus is seeing the process evolve from an idea in Philip Tremewan’s head to a full and final programme, she says. There’s also plenty of hard graft: Laura spent four months filling out funding applications. “Getting the money together to make it happen is a huge job.” And there’s always the need to “prepare for the unexpected to happen, because it totally will”.That creative itch still needs to be scratched though, and Laura has continued to write and perform, including appearing in Tall Tales & True last August, and maintaining her creative alliance with friends and fellow poets Annabel Wilson and Liz Breslin. ‘At the drop of a hat’ is their latest collaboration: audience members drop words into a hat, which are drawn onstage by the three performers - who must then perform poems related to the word. Laura says the concept is about making things more interesting, challenging themselves, and - importantly - engaging people with poetry to “share it as widely and broadly as possible”.She still finds the time to keep her hand in with one of the most sought-after gigs in freelance writing: travel writing for Kia Ora.Laura lives in Luggate with Liam and a collection of vinyl records dating from the 1980s, but it’s not surprising she doesn’t often go home to just relax.“Luggate is beautiful and peaceful and there’s an amazing community there,” she says. She should know - she’s writing a history of the area for the Luggate Community Association, and says “I have yet to find someone who lives in Luggate who isn’t completely fascinating.”PHOTOS: Supplied

With International Women’s Day being celebrated worldwide this week (officially it was Friday March 8), it seemed appropriate for the Wanaka App to talk to the woman behind next month’s much anticipated local series of public lectures entitled ‘Her Voice’.This isn’t the first event Amy Pearl has held in Wanaka. Some years ago she formed an organisation called The Weaving House - with the mission statement: “Gender equality is a precondition for peace, for the eradication of poverty, for sustainable and equitable development and for the protection of our environment”.Under the auspices of The Weaving House Amy organised Te Whare Pora in 2016 – a convention on gender equality and women’s empowerment, which featured many remarkable speakers including Louise Nicholas (campaigner for the rights victims of sexual violence), and Dame Margaret Sparrow (reproductive rights advocate and author), and comedian and writer Michele A’Court.Next month’s event, Her Voice, has attracted an equally impressive line-up of speakers including Professor Marilyn Waring (author and former MP), Lillian Tahuri (UN Women Aotearoa board member), Professor Juliet Gerrard (the Prime Minister’s chief science advisor) and Traci Houpapa (named by the Listener as one of New Zealand’s top 10 influencers).The Wanaka App started by asking Amy how she managed to persuade these high-powered women to come to Wanaka.“I think the many serious issues at stake persuaded the speakers to come, and they are gifting their time, so it’s a huge privilege to have them here.“I've had the opportunity through advocacy work to develop relationships with most of them or the organisations they represent. I think The Weaving House has a good reputation for upholding important values in the fight for gender equality and on most social issues.”Amy herself became aware of feminist issues as a small child.“I remember the many occasions of not being allowed to play like the boys, so as not to ruin my frock, or scrape my knees, or get too rowdy. Boys would run and climb and find the mud, [and] tears would roll down my face. I understood as a three-year-old there was something inherently unfair about that. Girls being treated differently and confined by specific rules that boys didn't have. But as a toddler you're not thinking feminist theory, you're thinking 'that's unfair'. Girls have a whole life-time of ‘unfair’. It's a man's world.“If I had a lightning bolt moment, it was when I realised the best way to help bring about change was through feminism. I found if I focused on looking at the world through a gender lens, every issue was a feminist issue. I slid into my new vehicle and joined the feminist movement.”Amy is an unashamedly self-taught feminist.“I've not done a lot of study through the usual channels, I could never sit still as a youth so classrooms never suited me and I've no qualification to my name. But I wholeheartedly love and find great joy in learning.“In my work for The Weaving House it's easy to read up to 30 articles a day. There are numerous publications from various women's and human rights groups globally. And I'm ever thankful we're living in an era where there's a lot of literature being produced by women writers who really know their stuff. Being able to access them has left me forever grateful.“For that reason, whenever possible The Weaving House donates feminist literature to our local library, like Barbara Brookes's The History of New Zealand Women or Marilyn Waring's latest book, Still Counting.”Amy’s eclectic education is getting another boost in June when she’s been invited to attend an Advocacy Academy offered by Women Deliver.“Women Deliver is a leading global advocate that champions gender equality and the health and rights of girls and women.” After the academy, which Amy says will be a “few days of intense study”, she will attend the Women Deliver Global Conference in Canada with about 6000 people.“I'll be meeting women there from all over our world who I know and work with online but have not had the opportunity to meet in person.”So how did Amy come to be living in Wanaka, when all the real feminist action is, arguably, taking place in big cities?“I grew up in a rural community and my love for our natural environment evolved there. Twenty years ago I passed through Wanaka for a few hours at the end of a mountaineering trip, and when I went back I found myself pining for Wānaka. I'd never experienced that physical pull to anything before, it couldn't be ignored. So I moved here, and the rest as we say is herstory.”PHOTO: Supplied

Born and bred Southlander Grant Ruddenklau didn’t get to choose a profession - as the only son of a farming family, it was his destiny to be a farmer. But Grant’s lifelong habit of putting his hand up for community groups has provided a counterpoint to farming, and put him in a strong position to tackle the “urban/rural divide” present in our community.Grant - the new chair of the Upper Clutha A&P Society’s first board - went straight onto the family farm in Dipton after schooling at Waitaki Boys and a year of shepherding in the North Island. But his assertion that he’s only been a sheep and beef farmer doesn’t cover the full picture.“We almost had to leave Dipton to get off all the boards we were on,” Grant says of the family’s decision to move to Wanaka in 2002.“We’ve always put up our hands to be involved - it’s great to be involved,” he said. After moving here, Grant became chair of the Mount Aspiring College Board of Trustees (he’d spent 15 years training boards of trustees for the NZ School Trustees Association); he has been president of the junior rugby club; and he’s on the steering group of community development group LINK Upper Clutha. He also became involved with the Upper Clutha A&P Society (“just helping out”) when he moved here, and five years ago became the society’s junior vice president. Last year he was voted as chair of the society’s brand new board.The A&P Society’s constitutional change made in October last year is significant: a board structure has been formed with five board members (Grant, deputy Jan Allan, Mike Scurr, Doug Stalker, and Chrissy Stevenson - “a good, diverse team”) elected from the society’s membership.“The A&P Show has grown so significantly as an event we needed a structure with governance,” Grant said. “We tended to spend 90 percent of the meeting talking about management.”Former president Alan Kane assisted the process, which saw the 82-year-old committee structure make way for a governance board which will in turn give direction to the “fabulous management team”.From left: Grant and the other Upper Clutha A&P Society board members Jan Allen, Chrissy Stevenson, Mike Scurr and Doug Stalker. PHOTO: Supplied“I think it’s quite exciting,” Grant said. “Our first strategic plan will be prepared this year once the show has concluded.”The organisation has had limited opportunity to plan ahead before, he said, and it will be looking at the society’s original goals and aims, such as promoting and educating about agriculture - “which is probably more relevant now than it was then”.“One of my real passions is the rural/urban divide. I think this is an opportunity to help the rural community bridge the gap,” he said. “We’re one community, and we won’t get to achieve anything unless we work together.”When the Ruddenklaus moved to this district in 2002 the majority of people here had had an association with farming in some way or form, Grant said, but as the township has grown there are fewer and fewer people with experience of farming life - reflecting New Zealand’s urbanisation.“A lot of people have never touched a sheep, never been close to a cow,” Grant said. It’s important because “ignorance breeds contempt”, he believes.“It’s got significantly worse with social media - everyone’s a journalist. You’re fighting that, but the majority of farmers are individualists, who just get on and do what they do.”Related: Celebrating dyslexia: Karen Ruddenklau“One of the biggest issues around here is water. One of the really frustrating things is I don’t think urban people really understand the impact they have on water quality. If more folks were aware of what goes into Roy’s Bay after a rainfall event - down the stormwater drains - I’m sure behaviour would change.”Urban people don’t realise farmers are in the environment every day, and 99 percent of farmers care for the environment, Grant said. A case in point: Grant and Randall Aspinall of Mt Aspiring Station founded the Wanaka Catchment Group 14 months ago. It’s a group of 16 farmers, from a catchment area of 19 farms, who meet regularly to gather information, using Beef and Lamb NZ’s Land and Environment Plan 3 (LEP3).The LEP3 aims to develop standards to monitor quality assurance and the farm environment. The group is working with Chris Arbuckle of the Touchstone Project (a direct action initiative to support those concerned about the Lake Wanaka water catchment).“We did that willingly to understand the impact we’re having. It would be nice if the town people did the same,” Grant said.Grant’s philosophy is that “life is about learning, educating and understanding”. That’s one reason why he’s excited about the A&P Society’s new structure.“We can use the society to educate as well as run an event [the show],” he said. We’ve run the Golden Fleece [an annual exhibition of the best fleeces in New Zealand] - there’s no reason we couldn’t run other day events.”Thinking outside the square could involve a school coordinator working with local schools, and other ideas as part of a “shared vision” with the board, management and members, Grant said.“It’s a blank canvas really.”So while Grant is “kept busy during the day” contract managing the neighbouring Mt Burke Station in the Maungawera Valley where the Ruddenklaus live, he has a lot more on his plate than farming.“I’m probably at the stage of my career, at age 57 after 41 years of farming, where I’ve turned a corner - I’d like to give back and encourage where I can.”

Mylrea Bell probably knows as many people in Wanaka as anyone does. She’s lived and worked in the area for nearly 40 years, had two sons grow up here, and gets to know at least 60 locals every year in her role as tutor of small business and money management courses. Mylrea’s also one of those community people known for their kindness: She can regularly be found baking for someone needing support, or helping out with other people’s children. In short, she’s one of those people who’s a very good friend to have. For all her sociability, Mylrea spends a lot of time alone. While her tutoring takes her out three nights a week the rest of her job is done from her home in the Maungawera Valley.Mylrea’s partner Andy Woods is away a lot, busy with his range of jobs which include being a fixed wing pilot, a jet boat skipper and a professional photographer, and her two sons have left home.But Mylrea’s quite content on their rural lifestyle block, and her work, love for animals and varied interests keep her busy.“I love it in the Maungawera. I like working from home and I’m never bored. I’ve got a cat, and pet hawk which I feed. I love birds of prey.”  In her spare time she likes to learn about Maori art, natural history, the West Coast, and her own family history. Before ending up in Maungawera Valley, Mylrea’s journey - and her curious spirit - took her all over the place, as it did the generations before her. Mylrea was born and bred in Milton; and her ancestors came from the Isle of Man. The name Mylrea was originally a family surname, but now many of her female relatives are called Mylrea. This weekend she is visiting a distant relative from Australia she met online (Diana Banks) who has written a book called “The Mylreas of the Isle of Man”. Mylrea’s own research has recently unearthed some ancestors and their journey to New Zealand. They were her great-great aunt and uncle Elisa and Philip Mylrea, who left the Isle of Man and went to the United States learn the confectionary trade on their way to New Zealand. While in America, Philip and their four-year-old son died of fever. Elisa continued on alone, only to be shipwrecked off the coast of Brazil. She and a small group of other survivors weren’t found for several months, but once she had recovered from the ordeal Elisa carried on to New Zealand where she opened her shop E. Mylrea Confectioner in Nelson. The entrepreneurial spirit has continued down the generations. Our Mylrea studied English at Otago University and then trained as a teacher, lasting just one year in that profession before seeking more adventures.She spent the next seven summers cooking at Pyke Lodge on the Hollyford Track (where her husband-to-be was a jet boat driver), and seven winters working at Treble Cone. Mylrea started in the ticket office, then moved into administration and human resources, eventually becoming the marketing manager. “I wanted to make sure I was doing it right so I did a diploma in business studies by correspondence from Massey while I was working at TC.”After that Mylrea helped establish, and then managed, the Wanaka Work Initiative Centre (1991-2003) which focused on fostering employment opportunities and community and economic development. In 2004 an opportunity came up to teach money management and small business courses. Mylrea felt she had the right skill set so applied for the contract, and that’s what she’s been doing ever since. This year’s courses start later this month, and range from a 20-week certificate in money management to two 36-week courses in small business and project management. “The money management course attracts all sorts, from people who are maxed out on their credit cards to people who have some money and want to invest it. Many New Zealanders are financially illiterate. I wish I had done a course like this when I was 18.”The small business and money management courses are for people wanting to start a small business or those who already have but would like some help. “Wanaka’s a great place to set up a business because it’s got a growing population. I really enjoy the people on the courses. They’re usually very able, they’re sparked up and they have a good sense of humour. They share a lot of information and it builds everyone’s confidence. They’re very practical courses and it’s great watching people build their businesses and being a part of it.” Mylrea’s definitely more than “a part of it”.  Many former students say they wouldn’t have succeeded without her expert tutoring and support.  And it looks like that support will be there for years to come. After 14 years in the job Mylrea says she has no plans to retire any time soon. If you’re interested in taking one of Mylrea’s courses this year, please email [email protected]: Andy Woods

John Darby is one of those locals whom many associate with one activity. He’s one of us because we see him regularly doing his thing - even though we might not know his name.In John’s case, he’s “the grebe man”. The chap who appears to have single-handedly revitalised the local population of grebes. In 2014, a count of grebes on Lake Wanaka revealed a maximum of six breeding pairs, John said. Four years later, another survey discovered 52 birds on Stevensons Arm alone.Grebes, which John describes as “a very elegant and beautiful bird but also very complicated”, are considered a rare and threatened species, found only in small populations in the South Island.Until he moved to Wanaka, John had only ever seen one grebe. “When I came here I heard about a pair of grebes, which had tried to breed at the marina, and I thought wouldn’t it be fantastic if I could get these birds to breed successfully,” he said.Grebes can barely walk so they design and build their nests to float on the water. A recreational whitewater kayaker for many decades, John discovered he could observe the birds more closely from the water and began to encourage the birds to breed by building floating nesting platforms which could rise and fall with the change in lake levels.“I put the first nesting platform out at 9pm at night because I didn’t want anyone to see me towing this pile of what looked like compost behind my kayak, and tied it under the marina. I got up at 6am the next morning and I couldn’t believe it - there were a pair of grebes going absolutely flat slats improving on what I’d done. It’s just worked.”John approaches nesting platforms in the Wanaka marina by kayak. PHOTO: SuppliedIn the six years since, John and fellow grebe supporters have fledged almost 260 chicks in the Wanaka marina area. There are six nesting platforms anchored to the lake bottom and the rest are attached to the marina.The proximity of the nesting platforms to the shore and nearby public walking path in Wanaka also allows locals and visitors “to connect more closely with the lake, to own it, which is so important for the healthy future of the lake”, John said. The subsequent public interest in the grebes on a national and international scale is quite amazing, he said.Since childhood, John has held a fascination with the natural world. Born in England before World War II, John survived “turbulent years” in the church system of orphanages, discovering peace only by running away and exploring the natural history of the English countryside.A failed attempt to emigrate to Australia at 16 led to his sponsored emigration to New Zealand by Lincoln College as a 17-year-old farmhand.John undertook study at Lincoln and went onto work at Ruakura Animal Research Station.It was while he was at Ruakura in 1959 that he and a friend hitch hiked to Wanaka via the newly built West Coast Road.“Wanaka was just a village in those days but I fell in love with it.”John resigned from Ruakura to enrol as a student in Zoology at Canterbury University and was employed as a technician during his holidays. The job morphed into a full time position as a photographer - skills which he then used to support the University’s Antarctic Research Programme, where he carried out the first aerial photo survey of the wildlife of the Ross Dependency.He spent two more summers in the Antarctic before he completed his degree at Otago University.An engineer wishing to help with the grebe breeding programme built a splendid nesting platform which immediately sank. It now resides in John’s garden. PHOTO: Wanaka AppIn 1969, John was appointed scientific officer in Zoology at Otago Museum and two years later became the museum’s assistant director when he started a science based holiday programme for some 400 primary school children. Science workshops were added for secondary school students, and science fairs, and eventually he established the first interactive science centre (Discovery World) in the country.As a former board member of the Otago Peninsula Trust, John was one of the group that negotiated the opening of the Royal Albatross Colony to the public. He is also known for his groundbreaking conservation studies, conducted over more than 20 years, of Otago’s yellow-eyed penguins (“My kids grew up with penguins in the bath”).While based in Dunedin, Wanaka became his family’s preferred playground for skiing and climbing and eventually he settled here permanently in 2004.A former Guardian of Lake Wanaka, John has a passion for the conservation and uniqueness of the natural history of New Zealand and strongly believes in the need for effective and continuing communication to achieve this.He also mentors 15 Wanaka children who are interested in natural history and science, encouraging them to take an active role in the conservation of the grebes.This interaction with the children of the “grebies group” is a privilege, he said. “They’re a pretty amazing bunch actually.” He recognises in this group that, in a way, he is passing on the torch to the next generation.

Tim Pierce has that unmistakable quality of someone who knows what he’s doing with his life. He’s making films. He’s driven, passionate, ambitious, confident and very busy. This is a man going places.Tim grew up in Wanaka, the son of Tim (senior) and Linda Pierce. From a young age he always seemed to have a camera in his hand. This passion for photography expanded to include moving pictures and it soon became obvious that Tim Pierce was one to watch in the filmmaking world.He started his own production company at the age of 18, and five years ago teamed up with old school friend Toby Crawford to form a new company called Two Bearded Men. (And yes they do both have beards.)As Tim is quick to point out, you can’t pigeon hole Two Bearded Men into any one category. “Our business is incredibly diverse within the film production industry. We create commercials, digital content, web series, music videos, virtual reality films, television series and dramas. Along with photography too.“Our diversity is the key to our business and that we love the huge array of work we attract and the challenges it presents. Essentially we’re in the business of story telling and problem solving.” Two Bearded Men (TBM) has an office in Reece Crescent, with three full-time staff and an intern. There’s Tim (general manager/director) and Toby (general manager/executive producer), Claire Dooney (producer/production manager) and intern Oscar Hetherington (another Mt Aspiring College graduate with a passion for filmmaking).Depending on the size of projects, TBM employs up to 40 contractors for different jobs, including actors, production/film crew, and post production teams around New Zealand. “We’re incredibly lucky to be able to tap into such a great crew of specialist contractors in our industry, which means we can have a small team in house, and then scale up for large commercial jobs. There’s really no job too big or too small”.Right now the company’s main business is digital content and commercials. For Tim it’s always about telling stories. Whether he’s making documentaries or commercials it’s about real people. “We’ve got a reputation for making commercials that don’t feel like commercials. They are authentic and real. I started off making documentaries and it’s storytelling that I love. “With digital content we are making advertising for any screens [not just television] so there’s a lot of openings for original ideas.” Tim recently made the ‘Meanwhile in New Zealand’ series for Air New Zealand and found the company great to work with. “Their concepts always give us us creative freedom to be weird or quirky or wonderful. It was amazing to have briefs like this for a brand of that size.”Tim is proud to have built up a film production company which is based in Wanaka. However he is about to move to Auckland, “for a couple of months anyway. We’ve got a lot of clients up there.” Locally Tim is probably still best known his documentary ‘Winter of Wells’ and for the character portraits he made for Lake Wanaka Tourism some years ago. These were a series of short films starting local identities from fishing guide Harry Urquhart to musician Martine Harding. Like many filmmakers, Tim has had no formal training. “I was a digital kid and a ‘google’ student and I’ve learnt by doing,” he says.What kind of films Tim will be making in 10 years time is anyone’s guess. He certainly doesn’t know. But one thing does seem certain - he’ll still be making films. For more information see twobeardedmen.com.PHOTO: Supplied

Albert Einstein famously said if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid. Einstein was dyslexic and this quote is a favourite of local dyslexia tutor Karen Ruddenklau.Fewer than 15 years ago dyslexia was barely recognised in the New Zealand school system. Anyone who was dyslexic usually left school believing they weren’t very bright. More often than not they couldn’t spell, struggled to read and couldn’t keep up with their peers in academic subjects. Because they didn’t understand what was going on in the classroom many got attention by playing up, and were they were labelled as naughty.But dyslexia has nothing to do with intelligence. It takes many forms but dyslexics generally think in pictures rather than words. It’s now regarded as a ‘specific learning disability’. “The official term is learning ‘disability’ because it’s not something you can fix,” Karen said. “But we generally call it a learning difficulty or a learning difference.” Official figures say one in ten people are dyslexic, and Karen believes the real figure is probably significantly higher.Dyslexia and its cousins (dyspraxia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia) are complex learning disabilities and people who have them can exhibit very different symptoms. This has made it hard to diagnose, and hard to remedy. When Karen was a schoolgirl growing up in rural Northland she couldn’t understand why her brother couldn’t spell while she could. He seemed to be just as smart as her, yet spelling was beyond him. This stirred an interest in education and Karen went on to become a primary school teacher.Later she married Southland farmer Grant Ruddenklau. They lived in Dipton for 14 years and had four children. When the children were nearing secondary school age the family purchased a farm near Wanaka and the children attended local schools. Karen worked part-time while the children were growing up and was able to get jobs as relief teaching at local primary schools and Mount Aspiring College.Around 2008 a nephew came to board with the family and go to school in Wanaka. When Karen was trying to help him with his Year 12 English assignments she was reminded of her brother (the one who couldn’t spell) and his struggles at school. She also remembered her mother’s story of how although she read and wrote well, she too just couldn’t spell. “Mum was strapped every day at school because she couldn’t do her spelling.”Karen knew by then that dyslexia had a strong hereditary component, and decided she wanted to train in specific learning disabilities (SLD), so she could help children who struggled at school. At that time there were no SLD tutors in the Upper Clutha but Hawea Flat Primary School principal Sue Heath put Karen onto the Seabrook MacKenzie Centre in Christchurch. She commuted for a year to complete the course, and soon had a growing number of students.  Although there was no Ministry of Education funding for Karen, demand for her tutoring grew and grew.“Parents would come up to me in the supermarket all the time and ask if I could help their children,” Karen said. “They were desperate.” Eight years on Karen’s workload continues to grow and there are several other SLD tutors in the Upper Clutha.“A huge change is that dyslexia is now recognised and children can be assessed to see if they have it, and then get help.” Karen says local children are now assessed at around the age of seven, or eight, which is about the right age for them to start getting help.“Any child can be taught to read. Dyslexic children need explicit teaching and lots of repetition, using multi-sensory methods. And, like any learning, it needs to be engaging and fun. But first and foremost we usually need to do a lot of work on their self-esteem. Once they’ve been diagnosed most kids are relieved to know there’s a reason why they are finding school so difficult.”Karen works with children one-on-one for an hour each week. She usually has them for two to four years.“It’s not a quick fix and progress can be slow. And then you see the light turn on. But every child is different in the way they learn. We work out strategies between us until they are confident about their learning.“It’s an amazing journey.  And I learn as much from them as they do from me. And there’s so much more [for me] to learn.”PHOTO: Supplied

An epiphany at an eventful music festival changed the course of Rhythm & Alps founder and managing director Alex Turnbull’s professional life.Alex was attending the Roskilde Festival in Denmark in 2000, during which nine people suffocated in a crowd surge while Pearl Jam was onstage. It was before mobile phones were ubiquitous, and before social media. The festival had a printing press onsite to print daily newspapers, and Alex recalls the following morning watching festival organisers drive around the festival site, dropping off newsletters which informed people what had happened, and explained why the “show must go on”.“I was just fascinated with the organisation, the whole structure of the business, watching it unfold and how it was managed,” Alex, who was working in the London financial markets at the time, said. “It was definitely an eye-opener. I thought, ‘Why am I doing something I don’t like?’ I went straight back to the trading floor and quit on the spot.”He committed himself instead to the “excitement, raw emotion, and energy” of the festival world.Alex believes we all have our own personal tastes and preferences for “releasing our energy”, and music festivals are one option, like theatre or sports. “Visiting theatre and opera houses around the world, and our own beautiful venues in New Zealand, I think ‘these are the rooms that create beauty and raw emotion’,” Alex said.The energy generated at a festival is almost tangible, he said. “The energy hangs in the arena after the festival is over. You can almost see it, as an orb or mist. That’s quite a special thing to be aware of.”Christchurch born and bred, Alex was schooled at Christ’s College and Wanganui Collegiate before completing a Bachelor of Resource Studies at Lincoln College. He spent ten years overseas, and after leaving his finance job he worked on the road crew for a production company in Europe, then took a night course in releasing and marketing music at the University of London.Once back in New Zealand, Alex and Rhythm & Alps (R&A) co-founder Hamish Pinkham organised the first R&A in the Rakaia Gorge, but Alex said they “quickly learned people don’t go to Methven in their summer holidays”. It made sense to hold the festival at a popular summer destination like Wanaka. But the festival’s first year in Wanaka (at Robrosa Station in Cardrona Valley) had a rough start. A short time to produce the show and bad weather resulted in negative publicity. The following year brought in half the expected revenue, leaving Alex unable to pay the festival bills.“It was a really hard time,” he said, “but I never had any doubt about what I was doing.”In hindsight, Alex believes the rough start was “probably the best thing that could have happened”. He showed his commitment to repaying creditors, and in doing so built “a deep, underlying trust” in the working relationships. “People have a vested interest in it now.”“Any business has ebbs and flows. We just had a speed bump in the middle,” he said. Alex estimates the festival now pumps between seven and ten million dollars a year into the Southern Lakes economy. Alex puts a lot of emphasis on continuity of staff and mentoring new staff. There were 900 crew involved in running the show, including artists, and a volunteer contingent of about 200 people.This was R&A’s eighth year, and the seventh in Wanaka: there were 5,000 people camping and 10,000 people partying on New Year’s Eve. “Every year we try to do it better. I’m pretty big on taking things one step at a time and doing it right.”“The Wanaka community cares about the environment we live in. We are trying to educate our consumers that disposable consumerism is on the way out,” Alex said. This year R&A trialled cardboard ‘Kartents’, with about 50 recyclable tents purchased and well-reviewed by users. The festival will be building on this, Alex said. Cardboard tents made “a bit of a difference”, but the reusable cups also trialled this year made “the big difference”, he said. “It made a massive difference on the ground - not crunching around on plastic cups.”“It’s about educating consumers to take responsibility for their personal waste. We do have a younger demographic and I have noticed a change.”Another change Alex is working on is the introduction of drug-testing kits for festival-goers. He’s working closely with the Wanaka police and St John, and is committed to doing due diligence around what is currently a “massive grey area”. While the festival is working hard to stop people bringing alcohol onsite, some people will choose take other drugs to enhance their experience, Alex said. “It’s not going away. We want educate people to make that choice. If you introduce these [kits] it’s going to reduce problems. There’s a lot of homework to do, but we’re moving forward.”The average age of festival-goer is 24; there are fewer 18-year-olds; and the behaviour is improving each year, Alex said. “We put on music that appeals to 24 to 50-year-olds. I’m 45 and I felt young in the VIP tent this year.”Alex played representative rugby for Canterbury when at school, but moved on to other interests in his early 20s. The rugby culture “wasn’t really quite me”, he said, but he was appointed to the board of the Otago Rugby Football Union (ORFU) in 2017 and is enjoying the role, which uses his marketing, promotion and commercial revenue generation experience.“I think people should be doing a number of things to keep themselves mentally inspired,” he said. As well as his regular morning skiing sessions at Treble Cone during the winter months, Alex keeps himself inspired with a regular yoga practice. “You need to take yourself away and work on your inner self,” he said, likening the practice to regular car maintenance.Alex has a “blended family” with wife Misi Sharplin; his daughter Lilyvelvet (13) and son Theo (10), who live in Christchurch with their mother, visit often. He also gets inspiration during in his “lull zone” of March to June. This March he and Misi are planning to attend a festival in Morocco: a package of accommodation, talks, cuisine and music. “The relaxing party for 40-year-olds,” he said.It’s not time to relax yet, though: The administration of R&A is 12 months a year; the delivery part is six weeks. It takes a month to build and two weeks to pack down - the pack down is almost over, and Alex has already launched the pre-sale campaign for next year. There are 900 registrations so far.R&A has consent (with landowners Robrosa Station, Department of Conservation and LINZ) to operate in Cardrona Valley for another decade. Alex reckons, all going well, he’ll be partying there at 55. The “excitement, raw emotion, and energy” of the festival he experienced years ago keeps fuelling him.PHOTOS: Supplied

Wanaka theatre director Gilly Pugh had a blast making people laugh and cry at the 2019 Wanaka Pantomimers’ second production, ‘Jac and the Beansprouts’. She reflects on her theatre career and promises more belly laughs early in 2019.When you think about homegrown Wanaka theatre, Gillian Pugh and her family spring immediately to mind.Gilly and her partner John Schwarz, a performer and dancer, have been at the forefront of Wanaka’s performance scene for several decades.Their actor and musician sons Bene, Gabriel and Stefan had “no choice’’ but to follow in their parents’ footsteps.“They would be sleeping upstairs while we were rehearsing downstairs,” she said.Gilly and John became famous in Wanaka and New Zealand in the early 2000s when they toured their comedy show, Four Play With Friends.Even the title got people giggling.“It’s F-O-U-R. It was very funny. Gabriel once went to school and told his teacher, “My Mum and Dad do Four Play.’’Over the years, Gilly and John shared the Four Play stage with many friends, including Mario de Bono, Miranda Schwarz, Vicky Billingham, Greg Inwood, Brian Cope and Denise Ward.Gabriel Schwarz as Jac’s mother in ‘Jac and the Beansprouts’. PHOTO: Wanaka AppAfter that show ended, Gilly and John founded Wanaka’s Aspiring Children’s Theatre company and continued to perform in and contribute to many other productions.Comedy is Gilly’s favourite genre. She found music and “serious acting’’ studies in Dunedin “a bit boring’’.“I studied music at Otago University but it was all a bit boring so I left and went to a performing arts school in Christchurch, where I met John. We ended up travelling together on a road safety show. That was our introduction to a particular style of theatre.’’Gilly attended every theatre course she could and was particularly influenced by directors Bryan Aitken, of Christchurch, and Hillary Norris, of Dunedin.Her ethic for lifelong learning saw her collaborate with another homegrown theatre company, Silk Tent (with Lucy O’Hagan and Lizzi Yates).They received funding from the Mental Health Foundation to develop a script for a multi media theatre performance exploring a community's responses to mental distress. It resulted in the play Girl with no Name.Silk Tent is “now taking a holiday’’, Gilly said.Gilly’s “patchwork life’’ of performance, festivals, event work, and teaching has been balanced by “real world jobs’’.Her present administration role with a Wanaka accommodation provider allows her to continue exploring her creativity and support her family.When Jac and the Beansprouts writer Liz Breslin invited Gilly to direct last year’s pantomime, Cindy and the Villanelles, she had to research the British genre thoroughly.“I had no pantomime experience when I was young. I had never been to a pantomime in my life. I just jumped in. I had to spend a lot of time researching because it was not a normal directing experience. There’s all these conventions that you have to adhere to. Well, you don’t have to, but it would be at your peril!’’To be true to tradition, audiences must be allowed to banter with the cast. No-one can control the improvisation.“My normal had to change. But because of the cast we’ve got, we’ve been able to make it real.’’Last year, Liz Breslin rose to the challenge of including the line “We reject your heteronormative realities’’ in Cindy and the Villanelles. Two formidable Dames (aka Bene Schwarz and Simon Brebner) stole every scene, Cindy’s heart was stolen by another woman, the prince didn’t mind and everyone lived happily ever after.This year’s slapstick production continued to bend genders while poking fun at health and safety conscious helicopter parents.Three professional actors living in Wanaka volunteered their services: Jay Simon (the villainous director), Becky Plunkett (the magic fairy), and Joel Herbert (the giant).Gilly said opening night was “brilliant’’ with lots of high moments for her, including the hilarious dance scene and when Jac (Jennie Salter) climbed the beansprout.Now pantomime season is over, the cast and crew will take a break before coming together next year to work on the third annual production, again including a fundraiser for Kahu Youth.But Gilly and family will be taking just a short break, before hitting the boards again early in the new year.“There has been some pretty serious rumblings from my family to do something together. It is hot on the heels of what we are doing now, before Gabriel goes overseas. It is a comedy. The biggest argument at the moment is what to call it.’’Expect nothing serious. Just some special guests and a laugh.“Making people laugh is much nicer than making them cry. But if you can manage to do both at once, that’s pretty cool!”Click here to read the Theatreview review of Jac (who is resilient) and the Beansprouts.

I have been following the fortunes of those who “live the dream’’ in Wanaka since 2003 and one thing I’ve noticed: ambitious trainers abound.While world champions haven’t quite reached plague proportions (some cyclist-hating motorists would disagree), I’ve learned that many who move into our growing district are quickly infected with the Wanaka addiction and begin training for world domination in anything from triathlon to taekwondo to rock’n roll dancing.Many years ago, I met former Te Anau farm girl Mops (Melissa Newell), at my favourite watering hole. We are now regular sitters at Kai Whakapai’s round table.Four years ago, Mops announced I too was in “training for the worlds’’ and she’d coach me. It was a mega surprise to me and still is. I don’t know what or where my “worlds’’ will be or when it will happen, and we’ve only ever been on one bike ride together (Sticky Forest, I fell off, cried, end of story).Back in 2014, Mops - a former New Zealand representative in rugby, soccer and basketball  - was a teacher at Mt Aspiring College, recovering from a hip operation and thinking about becoming a triathlete. Her sights were set on the 2015 Xterra World Triathlon Championships in Hawaii and she intended to qualify through the Motatapu Race at Wanaka. Mops was the first to admit her hip was holding her back. She could not run –had not actually run for six years – and was still learning to swim. But she could ride a mountain bike. Fast forward four years, Mops (39) still has to do any Xterra triathlon and is now working as a hammer hand for builder Mike Plimmer.Mops during the Deans Bank race 2017. PHOTO: Wanaka App While Mops saw no reason in 2014 why she should not aspire to potentially unachievable goals, she proved adept at tweaking her goals once it became clear they were not working.So she rode her bike a lot and now she is the 2018 Master Women’s Enduro Series World Champion.Mops has proved difficult to pin down for coaching advice over the past four years (she’s been busy riding her bike) so I haven’t started working on my own race plan. But I did me catch up with her to learn more about her worlds.First up, I reprise a question from 2014: why should people aspire to “the worlds’’?“Everyone should think big, dream big, have courage and say “Why not’’. The only person who says you can’t do something is yourself,’’ Mops said.So, now she has a world championship trophy, what does she dream about now? Another Enduro world championship bid, this time in the women’s professional elite category. Based on this year’s results, Mops could have finished a creditable 15th.Mops is going “back to basics’’, training under Wellington coach Tom Bradshaw, before starting to ramp things up in March for her 2019 season.In early December, she raced Dunedin’s Three Peaks Enduro as a “shake down’’ and was fourth woman. But she is okay with that. She had just completed a 50km training session before the race and was fatigued.“I had some really good learnings and that was really cool ... My proprioception [sense of equilibrium and balance] is a bit off when fatigued and I was not hitting my lines. It makes you go, “Okay. What I need to do is regain focus, to strip things back to basics.’’ A big thing for me was my body position, keeping a good, strong, safe position ... I didn’t give myself the best opportunity to perform, but I wanted to be up against it,’’ Mops said.Mops says she has thrived on the international stage. “I definitely didn’t intend to be the Enduro world champion. It all just happened by accident. Back then when we were sitting at Kai, that genre of mountain biking hadn’t come up on my radar. I wasn’t competing in Enduro. I had ridden cross country but not at World Championship level, just at Nationals and Oceanias. Enduro sits outside those events.’’ Although the Enduro World Championship Series is stand alone, like other mountain biking disciplines, it has a points system and requires qualification through New Zealand and overseas races.There are eight races in the series and the rider with the most points wins. Mops raced five: Chile, Columbia, Canada, Spain and Italy.Her risk paid off, just. The woman who finished second, just 25 points behind, raced all eight events and could easily have taken the title if things had gone differently in Italy and Spain.“I was only 25 ahead and was cutting it a bit fine. I had a shocker of a race in Italy. I was third. It was bitter sweet. I had mixed emotions. It was a terrible race but I got enough points,’’ Mops said.The 2018 world championship bid cost about $26,000. Mops is now hoping to raise a similar amount through business sponsorship so she can step up to the 2019 elite series.She will keep working full time for Mike Plimmer and squeeze in her training outside work hours and in weekends.“My biggest hurdle is I am time poor ... But I love what I do,’’ she said.Mops’ competitive season begins in Rotorua in March. She then travels to Tasmania, Portugal, France, Italy and Switzerland, aiming to complete seven of the eight races.An Enduro race consists of several timed race runs over off-road courses. These are separated by untimed “liaisons’’ or routes the cyclist must ride or walk, to get from one race run to the next. Riders usually cover up to 70km a day.

The youth members of St John have had a number of significant achievements in 2018, divisional manager and area youth manager for Central Otago Tina Simmonds said.There are 45 youth members in Wanaka, made up of ‘penguins’ aged six to nine-years-old and ‘cadets’ aged eight to 18-years-old, which divides what the young members do at St John.The ‘penguin programme’ is educational and fun, involving games, activities and sports, plus offering trips, excursions, picnics and more. The older cadets are also offered a fun and educational programme which gives young people exciting opportunities through a varied programme tailored to individual needs.Three Wanaka cadets achieve the Grand Prior’s Award this year, which Tina said was a huge achievement.To earn the award, cadets set goals to achieve in any of 29 subjects and must complete six compulsory badges, six badges of the cadet's own choice, and 100 hours of community service. Once the 12 badges and community service are completed, the Grand Prior's Award is completed and awarded at a ceremony in the presence of the Governor General.“The award is revised every year and is one of the best educational youth programmes in the world,” Tina said. “Learning objectives are built on the New Zealand Education Curriculum to ensure that cadets are given an edge outside of school and that we don’t overlap what is done in the classroom.”Last weekend Maddi Frazer and Kenzie Muir were presented with the award at the Central Otago St John Prizegiving. Kate Goodsell, who also achieved the necessary tasks for the award, was unable to attend the ceremony. The three cadets join six St John Youth members who have earned the award in the past.Two members also earned their ‘super penguin’ award this year, where ‘Penguins’ follow a course of nine badges, each divided into main topics. For each badge that is completed a Penguin is awarded a colourful sew-on badge and matching certificate. It normally takes two years to complete all nine badges.This year’s new ‘super penguins’ were Emily Hunt and Isla Ingham.Wanaka also achieved well at the South Island Competition at Living Springs, where St John Central Otago sent three youth groups.“Along with one other team and four cadets competing as an individual, Central Otago came away with many places and for the first time ever took out the prize as champion district,” Tina said.St John also presented its cup winners at the district prizegiving last weekend, with ‘outstanding penguin’ going to Harriet McKay, ‘outstanding green’ to Oli Wryth, while Lily Wilson earned the ‘outstanding blue’ and Eva Wilson ‘outstanding gold’.Those interested in joining as a cadet or penguin can view the programme online at www.youth.stjohn.org.nz or email tina at the address listed above. The 2019 programme will start on February 12.PHOTO: Supplied