Wanaka singer Rosie Spearing and her band Corduroy played their biggest gig yet at the Rhythm & Vines Music Festival in Gisborne on December 29. Now the popular Wellington-based, indie-pop band are bringing their neo-soul influenced sound to Wanaka. Marjorie Cook reports.Wanaka singer-songwriter Rosie Spearing’s performance alter ego is Alba Rose. It is an inversion of her first and second names and in Spanish, Alba Rose means “first light of early dawn’’ or “light before appearance’’.The Spanish interpretation is resonating with Rosie as she contemplates life after university. She is not sure yet how 2020 will unfold, but new beginnings loom. One thing is for sure - music will have a say.Rosie, 21, has just completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and sociology, and graduates from Victoria University in May 2020. The former Mount Aspiring College student is no stranger to the smaller stages of Wanaka.Rosie was mentored by singing teacher and performer Jenn Shelton and performed in many shows and concerts while she was growing up in Wanaka. Her band Kairos won the 2016 Central Otago final of the smokefreerockquest, seven weeks after coming together for the competition.Rosie performing with Willy Mac. PHOTO: SuppliedRosie left home in 2017 to study at Victoria University and while music is her passion, she chose not to do a music degree because she didn’t know how much music she would actually be doing and wanted to keep it a hobby.“If I was studying music I would be doing it full time and there would be a lot of pressures with that. I really like the mind, why people do things the way they do things, and I love learning to understanding behaviour. I am always interested in connecting with people. If I was fully immersed in music I don’t know if I would be doing it for myself or because I feel like I should be doing it,’’ she said.Rosie said her studies in psychology and human behaviour help when it comes to writing lyrics. Much of her song writing begins as an intuitive improvisation on things she is thinking or feeling.“I think it puts a different perspective on my songwriting. I think about things in different ways, why we do the things we do, and why we are acting certain ways on the surface, such as if we’re upset or frustrated with something, thinking what other social factors are contributing and what else is going on,” she said.Rosie has enjoyed several musical collaborations over the past three years, but her main collaborations have been with student band Corduroy and with ARLS, a duo formed in 2018 with Bravo Bonez (pronounced Bone-ez).She has produced two EPs – one which has been released with Corduroy and the other with ARLS which is to be released April 2020. Her main performance venue to date has been Meow, near Capital Markets in the city centre. It holds about 350 people and has a stage that fits five band members comfortably.Corduroy formed through the Wellington hall of residence, Weir House, mid-2017. Band member Will Cole had met Rosie at Mount Aspiring College in 2016, when he was enrolled in MAC’s Year 13 hostel programme. He was also a member of Kairos at MAC.Rosie PHOTO: SuppliedThey reunited in Wellington when Will (guitar) was looking for a singer to jam with fellow Weir House residents Dean Gibson (drums) and Simon Kenrick (keyboards). The friends then met Riley Barrett (bass) at an inter hall music competition - “we were like, he looks pretty fun, pretty groovy, let’s see if he wants to join’’ - and three years later, the five are still together.“We just kept going to the music rooms at Vic because Dean and Simon studied music. Then we got asked to play a gig for a ball, which went really well.”The first song the band wrote together was Fire. It came about when Rosie was at home in Wanaka, feeling fed up with the rush of the modern world, “how everyone is so busy doing so much all the time that we rarely stop and listen, to think about what we are doing here and now’’.“We take things too seriously instead of thinking that what is here and now is adequate and I was realising I’ve kind of given into that as well,’’ she said.She wrote a chorus, took it back to the boys in Wellington and they workshopped it.Their first recorded song, The Usual, was created from a personal project by keyboardist Simon, who had been working on some lyrics and chord progressions. Eventually, he brought it to the band and sought their input.“I think that is still my favourite song to sing and play,’’ Rosie said.“Simon on keys came up with the first few lines of the verse with the root notes and the synth and melodic progression. He played it to us and we decided to play with it. The first few lines [Last night you turned up at my door/As it got close to three past four/With a bottle of Jack and a brown paper bag] we thought, well, that’s relatable. I followed up with more lyrics while the boys filled in with instrumentation.’’The single was recorded at Lee Prebble’s Surgery Studios in Wellington with sound engineer/producer Andrew and released July 2018 as the band's debut single. Rosie is not sure what will happen to Corduroy in 2020, with four of the five band mates now graduating and Riley still working towards his degree, but she is amazed at the sorts of offers now coming the band’s way.Rhythm & Vines is the biggest festival the band has played at to date, but it has also played at New Plymouth’s summer festival in front of about 600 people. More shows in New Plymouth, Kapiti, Auckland and Christchurch are on the cards, as well as a January tour, stopping off in Queenstown and Wanaka.Corduroy has already completed one tour to Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington, and has played in Dunedin three times. The band has also played with Australian outfits Great Gable and Spacey Jane in Wellington, and would love to play in Australia because some months they have more Spotify listeners in Australia than in New Zealand.“The work is still growing. It is extremely hard for five different people to keep together in the same place and same time to write and create. That is our main problem. Everyone is just away or if not, away working or busy at uni or with big assignments,’’ Rosie said.While things are already exciting for Rosie and Corduroy, things have also become very interesting for Rosie and ARLS. ARLS is a trip-hop duo comprising Rosie and composer-producer Bravo Bonez. Bravo prefers not to use his real name but ARLS is an acronym combining the initials for Alba Rose and the initials from the name Bravo’s mother gave him.They are a bit of an unlikely combination (ventsmagazine.com describes Bravo as a “perpetual planet-traveller’’) and their planets may not have collided but for their mothers, who decided to set their offspring up on a coffee date to talk about music.“We met because our mothers were at a dinner party and started talking about what their kids do. They decided to get us together. I was initially, “Oh Mum why, haha, but we met for coffee in Wanaka.’’Rosie said collaborating with an older artist has exposed her to new influences and more experimentation. The collaboration also introduced her to top producers Greg Haver, Simon Gooding, and Eddie Johnston.“He [Bravo] was into the Bristol sound, Verve, Massive Attack, Portishead - music that I wouldn’t have considered following. Working with him has opened me up to a whole new influence of sounds,’’ she said.Since collaborating with Bravo, she feels she is no longer in a bubble and has been inspired to be more creative. Their debut single, Lucky, began as a short voice memo that included the word “lucky’’. Rosie recorded it and sent it to Bravo.He then helped her develop the lyrics and lick into a haunting, tough-hearted song about leaving an unfulfilling relationship.Lucky was released in April 2019 and will be followed by an EP, Meld, in April 2020. British producer Mark Saunders is working on their next single, Pace.Rosie loves collaborating across multiple genres and recently began a new project with Wellington musician Ethan Blackwood, dabbling in the genres of house, soul and electronica. She is still learning and is tempted to go it alone one day.“I can really imagine myself jumping from hip hop to drum and bass to soul, I love to do that, I can’t see myself yet tied down to one sort of genre, and plus it always keeps things interesting and exciting, keeps pushing myself to be creative. That does make it hard identity-wise, but I am trying to work that out too. Meanwhile, I am getting software and instrumentation skills up so one day I could go on tour with some Rosie tunes. That would be amazing.“But this summer, I have just finished uni and my degree and am taking a solid break. I am using this time to just play and work on my tools and my music.’’Hear Rosie and Corduroy at Yonder in Queenstown on Friday January 10 and at Post Office Lane in Wanaka on Saturday January 11. The gigs are free.

Three local legends have been honoured in the 2020 New Year’s Honours, among a list of New Zealand luminaries which includes newly minted Dame Professor Marilyn Waring, DNZM, and former All Black coach Sir Steve Hansen, KNZM.Internationally acclaimed mountaineer Lydia Bradey, of Lake Hawea, has been appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) for services to mountaineering. Wanaka’s Gary Dickson has been appointed a Companion of the Queen’s Service Order (QSO) for services to search and rescue, and John Taylor of Lake Hawea has been awarded the Queen’s Service Medal (QSM) for services to the community.Lydia Bradey PHOTO: Guy HamlingLydia told the Wanaka App she was “pretty stoked” to receive an award that often goes to national team sports athletes rather than mountaineers.The ONZM feels like “Hey, thanks for being a woman in that [mountaineering] world”, Lydia said. Lydia has been a trailblazer for women climbers during the past 35 years. In 1988 she was the first woman to climb Mt Everest without supplementary oxygen, and she remains the only New Zealander to have achieved this feat. She is the only woman to have successfully guided Mt Everest expeditions five times. She summited Aoraki/Mt Cook and Mt Aspiring as a 17-year-old, and climbed the ten ‘Big Walls’ (climbs of three to nine days long) in Yosemite Valley, California, in the 1980s - seven of which were the first female ascents. She also holds the first ascents of mountains in Pakistan and Antarctica.Lydia has scaled Mt Everest six times, most recently in May 2019. She is a qualified New Zealand Mountain Guides Association guide and is sought-after for guiding both nationally and internationally. She has completed more than 25 expeditions to over 6,000 metres. She was appointed a Life Member of the New Zealand Alpine Club in 2011. Lydia’s achievements inspired the play ‘Taking the High Ground’ written by Jan Bolwell in 2017. Her autobiography (written with Laurence Fearnley), Going Up Is Easy, was published in 2015 and has just been translated into French.Lydia said she sees the honour as an expectation she will give back a little more to society.As someone whose “soul is in the mountains”, she said: “I’d like to be involved in advocacy for preserving our natural environment. It doesn’t mean protecting them from people; it means teaching people to love big nature.”She also feels strongly that young people should be given the opportunity to get out into nature and learn how to make decisions - and mistakes, and so learn self-responsibility.Whichever path she follows in the future it will involve mountains, she said. “I’ll be zimmering along that trail.”Gary Dickson PHOTO: Wanaka AppGary Dickson has contributed more than 35 years of voluntary service to Search and Rescue (SAR) organisations in the South Island. He has served as the communications advisor for Wanaka SAR for the past 18 years and has served as the Alpine Rescue Leader for nine years.Gary is credited with developing Wanaka SAR from a group of casual volunteers to one of the most professional volunteer alpine cliff rescue teams in New Zealand. He has personally been involved in more than 200 rescue operations during his time volunteering at Aoraki/Mt Cook and in the Wanaka and Fox/Franz Josef Glacier regions.Gary was surprised to be honoured, he told the Wanaka App, because: “There’s a whole lot of people like me who will jump out of bed in the middle of the night to search for a stranger.”He is motivated, he said, because “that could be me, or it could be a mate, or someone else’s mate”.Gary said his ‘day job’ as a mountain guide involves managing a range of issues, and SAR offers similar challenges, some of them arising from three organisations working together on an operation.“I find it interesting. I don’t always find it enjoyable. I’m still here because we’ve made some progress,” he said.Gary has been an advisor to LandSAR New Zealand and president of the New Zealand Mountain Guides Association. He represented New Zealand at the International Commission for Alpine Rescue (ICAR) and the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations (IFMGA). He facilitated LandSAR New Zealand’s membership into the ICAR. He has also developed qualification standards for the New Zealand Mountain Guides Association, which was vitally important for New Zealand’s mountain climbing tourism industry. Gary hopes to use the appointment to help improve the SAR service during the next 20 years.“We’re a busy team and it costs everyone quite a bit. My vision would be to someday see Wanaka SAR become a professional service,” he said.“If you do get rescued, remember it’s not government funded. Give them a donation, or a box of beers, or a nice text or tweet,” he said.John Taylor PHOTO: Wanaka AppJohn Taylor, who was born and bred in Hawea Flat, has been involved with the Hawea Community Association (HCA) since 1991. He has been chairman of the Hawea District ANZAC Committee for five years, helping to establish a war memorial for the district and organise ANZAC commemorations. He is an active member of the Lake Hawea Foreshore Working Group, helping to maintain the reserve land along the southern foreshore of the lake, and oversees health and safety aspects of the work done by community volunteers. He has held roles with the Guardians of Lake Hawea for 37 years, including three periods as chair between 1995 and 2005. He was one of the group of members instrumental in establishing toilet facilities on the western foreshore, and one of the Guardians and HCA members involved in developing a swimming embayment near the boat ramp, allowing swimmers access when the lake levels are low. John has been a member of Wanaka Search and Rescue since 1982 and was made a Life Member in 2017. He is a current member of the Hawea Dip Trust and on the committee of the Upper Clutha Tramping Club. He has previously been involved with the Hawea Flat School Committee and the Lake Hawea Community Centre Trustees committee. John was a founding member of the Lake Hawea Volunteer Fire Brigade, serving in a variety of positions between 1972 and 2008. He was made a Life Member in 2008.John not only has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Hawea area, but also a passion for the community which explains all his community involvement. He told the Wanaka App he could only do the work he’s done with the “amazing support” of his wife, Diana Manson, and children Jasmin, Rhys, and Sophie.It is telling that John insisted on paying tribute to his mentors, all of them people of “intelligence, wisdom, and common sense”. They are Dick Cotter, Errol and Colleen Carr, Barbara Chinn, Rachel Brown, April McKenzie and John Langley, Aaron Nicholson, Alan Gillespie, Phill Melchior, and D.J. Graham. John also paid tribute to his late mentors: Ian Kane, Fiona Rowley, Robin Crimp, Gus Nisbet, and John Turnbull.

Professional cyclist Mikayla Harvey has bounced back from an end-of-season crash in Holland and is now gunning for a New Zealand jersey to wear on the European roads with her Bigla-Katusha team next year. Reporter MARJORIE COOK caught up with Mikayla at home in Albert Town.If you blink, you could miss that blonde cyclist who’s been tearing up local roads and tracks since September.It’s just 21-year-old Mikayla Harvey, taking a rest and recreation break.Mikayla was a young teenager at Mount Aspiring College when she began dreaming of becoming a professional road cyclist.She joined a women’s development team, Team Illuminate, based in the United States, straight after leaving college and is now one of the top New Zealand female elite riders, while still racing under-23.Mikayla completed her first season as a domestique for Bigla-Katusha in September and returns to the Bigla fold immediately after the New Zealand National Championships in mid-February.“I’m hoping to come away with a win in the open [women’s] category at the nationals so I can wear New Zealand’s colours on the Bigla team jersey in 2020,’’ she said.Mikayla’s 2019 season was her first real taste of racing the professional circuit in Europe.Mikayla competing.The two previous seasons, she’d been finding her way in high end, smaller races, but until she joined Bigla, she’d not been paid to race.“Now cycling is my job. I am self-employed for cycling,’’ Mikayla said.Bigla is a Swiss-based furniture manufacturer, which has partnered with cycling kit manufacturer Katusha for 2020.There are at least a dozen women in the 2020 squad, mostly aged between 20 and 30-years-old, with the focus on development.Clara Koppenburg, of Germany, has been signed as a team leader for 2020, with Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, of Denmark, moving to FDJ Nouvelle Aquitaine Futuroscope.Bigla-Katusha is not one of the eight women's teams that have applied for WorldTour status for 2020.Mikayla’s parents, Patrick and Tammy Harvey, remain Mikayla’s key “sponsors’’ during her New Zealand summer break, but Bigla pays Mikayla an allowance and expenses for the nine months she is on the road.The young cyclist is a member of the Bigla fold.Mikayla’s 2019 season high was an unexpected time trial win in the Tour of Bretagne in France, while her low was concussion suffered in a crash during the Boels Ladies Tour in Holland about three months ago, just before the World Championships in Yorkshire, UK.Mikayla is known for her time trial abilities but did not expect to win in the Bretagne tour because she wasn’t seeded highly and was focused on her job as a domestique. She had to wait until all other riders had finished to find out she had won.“It was quite a shock. I was never expecting to make it onto the podium during the season. [The Tour of Bretagne] was a really cool tour of five days and the time trial was the middle stage. It was a shot to go out and show how strong you are. I was one of the first riders off and wasn’t expecting to beat world class athletes,’’ she said.Mikayla found the road conditions in Europe technically challenging and early in the season had a few minor crashes.She was grateful to have recovered quickly from her early season scrapes but found it harder to recover from the concussion.“I tried pushing into it too soon, because I wanted to compete at the World Championships [in Britain]. Then I got sick. I still went to the world champs but I had to pull out of the time trial, and I started a road race, but got pulled out too. Lots of people did. It was disappointing, but I should not have been racing. But crashes are also part of the sport,’’ Mikayla said.This summer, Mikayla is focusing on base fitness. She’s had a few weeks off, just for a mental break, and is now building up kilometres and endurance on the bike.A typical week for Mikayla at the moment is three gym sessions to build strength, with a short run before each session to wake up her legs.She’s also biking between five or six times a week. She’ll do two easy rides and at least one mid-distance ride of about three and a half hours, plus a longer ride of up to five hours.“At the moment, my efforts are long and slow but before the nationals, everything gets shorter and harder.”At a recent training camp coached by her parents at Alexandra, Mikayla clocked up 200km in one ride, which is not something she would usually do.She also did the “Three Peaks’’ ride, comprising consecutive hill climbs up the Coronet and Remarkables ski field access roads, followed by an ascent of the Crown Range between Queenstown and Wanaka.“I love training. I love feeling fit. Even if I am not on my bike, I love going out and having little adventures,’’ Mikayla said.After the New Zealand National Championships, Mikayla will fly to Spain for a Bigla preseason camp.The camp is an important start to her year on the road and Mikayla does not want to miss one moment of it, but will have to miss the start of camp because of the clash with the NZ nationals.Bigla Katusha’s 2020 campaign will be similar to the 2019 campaign. The season starts in Belgium with two months of “spring classic’’ one day races over cobbles. Mikayla also has early races in Northern Italy.If 2019 is anything to go by, Mikayla expects to be moving around a lot. “I probably saw over 100 hotels, all three star,’’ she said.“My main base was Gerona, for about a month, but I also spent a lot of time on the road, going from race to race, doing training camps and travelling. I really enjoyed it. Part of the thrill of the sport is moving around all the time.”In 2020, Mikayla and a teammate hope to share an apartment at Lago Majore in Northern Italy, which would allow them to be more settled, although they will be competing in 50 to 60 races over nine months.Mikayla’s main goal is to be selected again for the Giro Rosa in Italy, a ten day grand tour for women. She raced the Giro Rosa this year and spent a day as best young rider. Although the young Bigla team did not make the top ten, Harvey helped Bigla to second overall in the team time trial and the Bigla team had four podium finishes.“It was a highlight, a beautiful course, in the top part of Italy, following the mountains. Every stage was mountainous. That was the most challenging time of my life,’’ she said.The 2020 season will be Mikayla’s last as an under-23 rider, so she is hoping for more opportunities to go for Young Rider points.She’s also expecting to work as domestique, which involves going back to the team car, picking up bottles and sprinting like hell back up to the peloton.“In the Giro, I got ten extra bottles and when I pushed off from the car, I literally thought I would never see the peloton again. It was so hard to catch up and feed all my team mates,’’ she said.After spending almost a year in a “race bubble’’, Mikayla is enjoying normal life in Wanaka and the chance to relax.“But I do miss it. I am already excited to go back and do it all again.’’ PHOTOS: Supplied

Long-time Wanaka resident Steve Worley has seen the devastating effects of Australia’s massive bushfires first-hand.Owner of the Kodak store on Ardmore Street, Steve now also owns a similar business in the northern New South Wales town of Ballina, just south of Byron Bay. In May this year he joined the NSW State Emergency Services (SES) as a volunteer and, as part of this team, has had an active role supporting the NSW Fire and Rescue during the current bushfire crisis.“It’s quite a contrast – floods in Wanaka and reopening the store today, compared to two weeks ago with my SES team in the Whiporie and Myall Creek area, south-west and inland from Ballina, where we were knocking on doors, asking people if they had an evacuation plan and a way to get their pets out,” Steve said. “Did they know where the nearest centre is, and whether it took pets or not. We weren’t telling people, but advising them of their options.”Steve is well-known locally for his contribution to the Wanaka Community Patrol, an initiative he started in 2014.“I retired from the community patrol when I started spending more time in Australia. It was recommended to me that I join another voluntary service and the SES was the most obvious one.”SES is a state-funded voluntary organisation and there are about 100 members in Steve’s unit, ranging from 18 to 70-year-olds. The fires have burned at least 2.7M hectares.“Living in a beach community, storms and tsunami are our main focus usually, and road crashes. I’ve benefited from their excellent training in the past six months,” Steve said.While the Australian fires no longer dominate New Zealand news, they are still burning fiercely across wide areas. The Guardian newspaper provided the current statistics of the fires’ toll: six people have died, almost 700 homes have been destroyed and at least 2.7M hectares have burned. Fires stretch the distance of the NSW coastline. Drought has gripped this part of Australia for several months and some coastal towns face the possibility of running out of water by January if summer rains fail to materialise.Steve said the Whiporie area where he was working is still bad. “The houses I was knocking on, a week later they’re all gone. Road signs look like they’ve been blow-torched. Estimates of 1000 koalas being killed. I heard of beekeepers trying to go back into the forest to rescue their bees and hearing the burnt koalas crying. The fire season has started early and it’s massive with pretty much no rain since July. Two fires north of Sydney last week joined to make a 1,000km wide front.”Steve returns to Ballina today (Thursday December 13) and will be back into some kind of rescue work on Sunday or Monday. “There’s a lot of community support for locals, and some from the government. Saving lives is the priority, but some people don’t want to move. People are wondering what’s going to happen next.”Steve said he will continue living between Wanaka and Ballina for the meantime. “I have a great team running the Wanaka store and expect we’ll have a busy summer as usual now most businesses are operational again as the lake level lowers.”PHOTOS: Supplied

Senior sergeant Miriam Reddington’s decision to join the police force came from a desire to give back. “It suited my personality - I wanted to be involved in the community and I wanted to help,” Miriam says. Bubbly, young and female, Miriam doesn’t fit the cop stereotype, despite running the show as senior sergeant at Wanaka Police. She’s fairly new to town and the role, having moved here in August last year and filling departing senior sergeant Allan Grindell’s shoes until April when the role was made permanently hers. Being a woman in the male-dominated police force doesn’t bother Miriam, and she’d like to see more women taking up the job. “We’re trying to make room for more diversity in the police force and it’s something we’re really supportive of - we want our workforce to represent our community.” The born-and-bred Wellingtonian has loved the move to Wanaka - luckily the coffee here is up to her capital city standards. She does “all the things everyone does here” - getting up the mountain in winter, paddleboarding, swimming, and hiking. Where Wellington life revolved more around dining out and socialising, she’s enjoying having nature on her doorstep, plus all the other benefits small town life brings. “I love it,” she says of Wanaka. “It’s a community rich in culture; people are really supportive of us [as police] and each other.” Miriam’s most recent Wellington role with police was with the Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) - which is dedicated to investigating and solving serious crime, and targeting organised crime and recidivist criminals. She said she still “loves the CIB and that type of work” but has enjoyed the switch from metropolitan to rural policing. While there’s “a bit of a bubble” for some people in Wanaka, Miriam says people should be cognisant that there is “the same range of people here as any metropolitan area”.Miriam is one of 15 police staff based at the station in Wanaka, as well as two support staff and two detectives.Three main issues in Wanaka take up the largest portion of the police’s time, Miriam said.“Our biggest demand is for road policing,” Miriam said. “It’s not just tourist drivers but the locals too.” She said some of the issues we face on our roads come from the type of roading and tricky terrain we have here: “Policing the roads is something we take very seriously.”The second issue is alcohol, which is “huge for us”, Miriam says, adding that monitoring drinking over summer,and preventing youth drinking and drink driving are priorities. The inevitable rush of busyness and increase in drinking around the New Year’s period is something police prevent as best they can, Miriam says, and they try to be educative in the community. “Everybody has a part to play.”The third issue, to a lesser extent, Miriam said, was family harm or domestic violence. “We still have demand here in the family harm space.”“We want people to know there is no stigma and they can come to us for help.”Being a local police woman and having a private life separate from work can sometimes be a hard balance, Miriam says, but adds its “really important I’m connected and available to the community”. One of the ways the police keep the community informed is through the weekly Crimeline column, which Miriam says is unique to Wanaka as far as she knows. Police from other towns have even been in touch to ask how they can set up their own versions. “We love that we have that door into the community.” The summer season, fast approaching, is the police’s busiest time by far, and can prove the most challenging. “We get hard jobs to do that people don’t always like, but we’re always trying to do the best for the community. We’re people too, people with families.” While people don’t always appreciate it, it’s important to remember “what we’re doing is preventative,” Miriam says. It’s been a fast adjustment to life in Wanaka, somewhere Miriam spent time holidaying while growing up, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. “I go to Wellington sometimes and I think: Why am I leaving here? Even when I’m going for a few days.”PHOTO: Wanaka App

International Volunteer Manager day, which was celebrated this past week (Tuesday November 5), provides an opportunity to stop and reflect on the amount of work it takes to recruit, induct, train, support and retain volunteers.Volunteering Central, which works with organisations across the Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes District to promote, support and strengthen volunteering, sees International Volunteer Manager Day as a chance to give a shout out to the many volunteer managers who work so hard to ensure volunteers have a great experience.We often celebrate the amazing contribution volunteers make to our community, and the efforts of these dedicated volunteers would not happen as effectively as they do without passionate volunteer managers to lead them, Volunteering Central’s Gillian White says.Gillian says Wanaka local Jane Sharman is one of the busiest volunteer managers she knows, and much of her work leading volunteers is done as a volunteer herself.Jane moved to Wanaka three years ago from Auckland with her two young children and husband Adam. She loves to run, walk and ski, loves heading outdoors, going on bike rides, eating good food, drinking coffee, catching up with friends and helping with community projects. In a nutshell, Jane loves Wanaka and contributes an enormous amount to her community.One of Jane’s key roles is as Wanaka parkrun event director – which she has done for nearly two years as a volunteer herself. She and her husband Adam set up Wanaka’s parkrun, which takes place every Saturday and offers locals and visitors the opportunity to take part in a timed 5km run or walk with a social coffee at Edgewater afterwards.“Volunteers are everything. We are here because of volunteers’ passion and parkrun relies on volunteers to make it happen each week. We are all volunteers – promoting the event, rostering volunteers, setting up the course, marshalling, timing, scanning runners, processing results and more,” Jane said.“We hope that volunteers have plenty of fun, make friendships, enjoy the opportunity to improve their own fitness and enjoy being outside, that they enjoy enabling others to meet their fitness goals, gain a sense of community, learn new skills and gain confidence – all while having a great time.”Jane has managed volunteers for around 12 years, previously working for The Cancer Council in Australia running events such as Daffodil Day and Pink Ribbon Day. In New Zealand, she has worked for The Cancer Society delivering Wanaka’s first Relay for Life and hosting three Pink Ribbon breakfasts. Jane also works for Warbirds Over Wanaka, has volunteered with The Wanaka Trail Ride, Wanaka Playgroup, and is currently on the board of Montessori Children’s House Wanaka.Whatever her role, when managing volunteers, Jane works hard to ensure they feel engaged with her and the organisation as a whole.“I want all volunteers to feel that they have had an excellent experience and that starts with offering a friendly and welcoming environment, regular communication and reminding everyone that events, such as parkrun, only happen because of the volunteers,” she said.“I’m also keen to acknowledge their input and to ensure they are aware of the difference they are making not only to the organisation but to themselves and the wider community. I see each volunteer as an individual and want to ensure they have the opportunities to try new roles and to keep developing as volunteers. That also helps me out as I can delegate roles to those keen to try something new. Finally, I love to celebrate their passion during National Volunteer Week or International Volunteer Day.”Volunteering Central realises how hard it is to recruit and retain volunteers, Gillian says. There are so many organisations out there seeking support. Organisations need to ensure they are offering a meaningful and rewarding role and that their volunteers feel valued and motivated to keep turning up week after week or year after year. A huge part of that is ensuring volunteers understand the organisations vision and how they are contributing towards that – no matter how small the role appears.“With parkrun the most challenging aspect is managing different levels of commitment from volunteers and knowing we’ll have enough volunteers each week,” Jane said. “However, it’s a great role and I love seeing how appreciative people are of those sharing their time for the benefit of others. The social aspect is fabulous, we get to meet such a variety of people each week and bring together people of all ages and abilities for a common goal. Every week after parkrun I look around and think to myself – wow, what an awesome bunch of people we have here – it’s a fantastic start to the weekend.”To find out how Volunteering Central can support your volunteer programme or to chat about volunteering contact them at [email protected] or visit Gillian at Wanaka Community Hub each Wednesday between 9.30 – 1pm. Also check out roles on the Volunteer section of The Wanaka App.PHOTO: Supplied

It's one of Wanaka’s business startup success stories in an environment littered with ideas that often never get out of the garage. But, Kiwi-as and turbocharged by a smart global digital marketing strategy, Mons Royale has kept on track to celebrate a decade in business this year.Based on one of our most traditional products, the business was launched by two high country farmers’ offspring - Hamish Acland and Hannah Aubrey - who took merino wool, boosted its value with a new brand of outdoor apparel, and launched their product across the globe.The long history of the wool industry - some estimates have wool accounting for 90 per cent of our export income in 1860 - and the language around brand identity makes for an interesting mix. For Mons Royale, transforming a run-of-the-mill product like wool, and building a marketable storyline behind it has been quite a haul.Started in a small bedroom in Hamish and Hannah’s Wanaka rental home, the company now employs about 50 full time staff, most of them in Wanaka, and supplies 600 retail outlets worldwide, Hamish said.There’s an office in Innsbruck, Austria, and plans for another in Vancouver; both large urban populations with a hankering for alpine recreation.Closer to home, the warren-like offices upstairs in two buildings on Wanaka’s Reece Crescent are an evolving mix of racked garments, imagery, desks, and monitors.There’s a glassed-off media production booth for inhouse content editing; a marketing area; an accounts department; creatives’ space; a sales and display room packed with samples; and the warehouse Hamish calls the “war room”, where spare wall space is covered with production timelines and imagery.The workflow from concept to finished article repeats every 30 months. “Its crazy from creative to production. We’re thinking two and half years in advance,” Hamish said.The desires of the sometimes elusive ‘Sammy’, a 26-year-old persona/avatar - and possibly their most valued client - is part of the storyboard. If ‘Sammy’ won’t wear it, they won't waste their time making it.‘Sammy’ is based in Innsbruck, with a passion for the outdoors, and every piece he or she might consider for skiing or mountain biking are key to creating their designs.What is its purpose? How will Sammy like it? Seasonal activities are all fed into an algorithm of uses, colours, fabrics and styles; refined through the design and production process; and resulting in the finished item on the shelf.“We’ve got an army of people working together to create the energy of the mountains. Something that reflects the mountain lifestyle and connect with the energy and style Mons represents,” Hamish said.The Mons concept was already evolving when Hamish met Hannah at a friend’s BBQ in Wanaka.Hamish, a former national champ and professional freeskier had, like many retiring ski bums, a strong desire to do something which could match his enthusiasm for the alpine lifestyle he’d enjoyed since his teens.Mons Royale sells more than half of its product to women. Hannah was just back from four years working as a graphic designer in the dynamic environment of innovation consultancy Fahrenheit 212 in New York. Family expectations on the Lindis Valley sheep farm were that her corporate career was just getting launched. In a way it was, but not in the conventional sense.“I never thought I’d end up working with merino,” Hannah said. Hooking up with a retired freeskier and “launching a woollen underwear company,” was not initially greeted with much enthusiasm.The match lasted however, with the couple tackling their project from Hamish’s vision; based on his own experience on the pro circuit as a skiing nomad used to living out of a bag with only a couple changes of clothes.He was a longtime fan of the benefits of merino wool’s natural qualities as a working undergarment, its ability to stay warm and “manage” odour so you could wear it for days without washing it.However, socialising after a day on the slopes could be sartorially challenging. The majority of woollen products were still not suitable for public exposure in a cafe or bar - even in the ski industry.The solution? Design their own products and take it to the largest sport trade show in the world: ISPO in Munich.Their first modest range in 2009 consisted of one sample set of 12 styles in three colorways packed into a single bag. As outlined in an article by Hamish on the Mons Royale site, the couple booked into a nearby backpackers, made their sandwiches and set up in a six-by-six metre stand.“We were naive and optimistic. We believed that of the thousands of people attending, a couple of hundred would see our amazing imagery and stop to talk to us. The reality was, our location was a shocker - we were in a dead zone. I spent most of my time at other brand's booths, enjoying their coffee and trying to steal people's precious time to hear my pitch. After four days we came away with leads, but no orders. We had crashed and burned hard. But like any good rookie, we soaked up the experience like sponges. I wasn’t going to quit after just one knock down,” he wrote.Time for another plan. They both agreed the concept was worthy but it needed some branding legs to make it grow. After the show Hannah knuckled down to tackle the issue and they got to work on a new range. The colours were more vivid, the graphics bolder, and the branding image remained focused on the skiing lifestyle.In 2011 they launched the “Who Says Winter Can't Be Hot?” campaign, and momentum grew.“We wanted to connect with the energy and style Mons represents,” Hamish said.An introduction to a Swiss retailer through his sponsorship connection to ski brand Volkl finally gave them their first big order, clearing their stock and gaining their entry into the competitive European market.As the company grew, changes were taking place. More women were getting involved in alpine pursuits like skiing and mountain biking, and customer choices were based more on sustainability and ethical production rather than following fashion trends, Hannah said.The company now sells more than half of its product to women; much higher than most outdoor apparel retailers.Emerging technology such as Tencel wood fibre to replace polyester is increasingly being used to weave into the merino. They buy it ethically sourced through the ZQ certification process.Manufacturing and the bulk of their market is based overseas, but the Aclands say their base in Wanaka provides them with the inspiration to work hard developing new products focused on an alpine lifestyle.The company is now expanding its range into the growing mountain bike market.Now with two small children, the Aclands’ focus has changed too. “We used to be looking five years ahead. Now it's something like 20.”PHOTOS: Mons Royale

Back in 2013, Wanaka locals Shona Brown and Paul Tamati got talking about the difficulties facing young people who wanted to learn a musical instrument in Wanaka. Shona was looking for an instrument for her child and couldn’t find any affordable options to buy or hire. Paul, who was heavily involved in Stars in Your Eyes, came up with the idea of starting a musical instrument library and applying for a grant from Stars in Your Eyes.  The grant application was successful and in 2013 the musical instrument library opened with ten flutes, ten clarinets, two cornets and two trumpets. With the musical instrument library, administered by Helen Carter, proving very popular, in 2015 Shona, Paul and music teacher Naomi Carleton started thinking about how they could make learning an instrument more fun and accessible for young people and affordable for families. “We came up with the idea of group lessons for children because we believe it’s more fun to learn in a group setting and it’s also much more affordable for families,” Shona said. With some more funding from Stars in Your Eyes, Aspiring Young Musicians became an incorporated society and in late 2015 started group music lessons after school at Wanaka Primary School. From these small beginnings, Aspiring Young Musicians has grown to become a Wanaka community success story. The not-for-profit organisation now has more than 95 young students enrolled in group music lessons in Wanaka, and runs lessons after school at Mount Aspiring College four days a week, where they have been for the past three years.  Currently the lessons available include keyboard, ukulele, guitar, violin, cello, trumpet and percussion. There are also group lessons available in musical theory, an introduction to music for children aged five to seven-years-old, and drama and music action - a game-based lesson involving mime, improvisation and music.  Lessons available include keyboard, ukulele, guitar, violin, cello, trumpet and percussion.Mat Doyle, head of music at Mount Aspiring College, said he had noticed a significant change since Aspiring Young Musicians began offering group lessons in Wanaka. “There’s been a huge increase in the level of performance of our incoming Year 7 musicians,” he said. “I’ve been blown away by the number of good musicians coming through and I know that Helen Carter, who teaches Year 7 music, has found it invigorating to teach students who can play a much wider range of instruments than was the case in previous years. Because of Aspiring Young Musicians’ group lessons, we’re seeing a greater number of students with a high level of musical knowledge from the get-go, which gives us as teachers a real opportunity to expand on the basics.”Shona credits the success of Aspiring Young Musicians to the support the organisation receives from the community. “If for any reason one of the music teachers is unavailable, we have some fabulous older members of the community who are happy to relieve for us on a voluntary basis.We’ve also received a generous grant from the Wanaka Concert Society to grow our instrument library, continued support from Stars in Your Eyes, and great backing from Mighty Efficient Bookkeeping.”As well as the adult music teachers, some senior Mount Aspiring College students have got involved in music teaching for Aspiring Young Musicians. “It’s great for them and great for the younger kids,” Shona said. “They get to showcase their musical talents and mentor the younger students, and the younger students get to see what’s possible if they keep practising.”Paul Tamati, who is now chairperson of Aspiring Young Musicians, said he has big plans for the future of music in Wanaka. “My ultimate goal, and this might take 20 years, is that we would be able to contribute to the founding of Wanaka’s first symphony orchestra. All we need is passionate people who want to make a difference to our young musical community.”Shona said that the organisation had been overwhelmed by the popularity of the group lessons, which are currently offered at $15 a lesson. “We’ve just grown exponentially - so we must be doing something right.”PHOTOS: Supplied

Kaz von Heraud-Parker is no stranger to re-invention. Her career choices have taken her from architectural designer to interior design guru, and now a new business helping women navigate menopause. A gift for mathematics led Kaz to completing her first degree in building science. At that stage, Kaz’s inner artist wasn’t fully formed, but the design elements of the degree attracted her.She worked in a range of different roles in the building industry, from hands-on with the “dirt doctors” and engineers, to project management.Eventually she moved to Wanaka, drawn back to the southern mountains where she had spent a lot of time with her family. Here, she discovered the book ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron, which set her on a new path.In 1999 she started an interior design business. Kaz Designz brought Kaz’s artistic skills together with her building industry experience. Next, she and her husband Greg launched the high end luxury fashion label Von Avi - "metal fashion with attitude” - in 2009. Greg had made her a metal wallet that attracted so much attention that when their son was born Kaz told Greg she must “have graduated to a handbag by now”. “I couldn’t go anywhere without someone commenting on the handbag or the wallet,” she said.With Greg’s background in aircraft engineering (working with Sir Tim Wallis) and Kaz’s creativity and business skills, they developed a range of hand bags for the international market. The handbags drew attention at both Auckland and Sydney fashion weeks, and they succeeded in setting up outlets in New Zealand and exporting to Dubai, until they came head to head with the global financial crisis. Von Avi bagsThe ambitious, underfunded label soon became unstuck. Kaz and Greg realised they needed to change tack if they were to survive the challenging times.At that point Kaz’s reinvention skills came into play as she launched “operation city bitch”, taking on a corporate job in Wellington to help pay for their Wanaka property. Having lived in Wanaka for 17 years, she said moving to the city felt very foreign.She was quickly promoted from her role as marketing manager to general manager at an interior design import supply company. She designed an acoustics education programme for architects, wrote training books, ran seminars and sustainability-proofed the business.But the high achieving “city bitch” was also struggling with insomnia, hypothyroidism, and low energy. "The combination of huge financial stress, the move to Wellington, and a history of hormonal imbalance meant that I created the perfect storm and crashed head long into menopause,” Kaz said.A doctor prescribed a range of medications, but Kaz was brought up to believe food is medicine. “I just threw it all away and started researching.” She came across an interview about adrenal fatigue with functional medicine practitioner Dr Kalish in San Francisco, and was so impressed she contacted him to ask if she could study with him.Functional medicine involves saliva, urine and stool testing, providing a snapshot into the body at a cellular level, Kaz said. This tangible record appealed to her, as she had been spending a lot of money on supplements in the hope they were what she needed.She adopted functional medicine whole-heartedly. “Every step I made along the pathway my energy levels got better.” Kaz at Sydney Fashion Week with Von Avi.She realised she was not the only woman hit hard by menopause, and wanted to help others.Kaz “got her geek on” for the next steps: studying functional medicine online, including a two-year mentorship programme with Dr Kalish, then studying for a double diploma in nutrition and naturopathy - at double-speed.Meanwhile, she and her family returned to Wanaka and this past year has been devoted to setting up her new business, Reset Lab, drawing on her “city bitch” experience implementing a systemised education programme.And all the while, she has been healing herself, not just of menopause symptoms, but of a lifetime of adrenal deficiency. There’s some detective work involved in understanding yourself - and other people - but it’s not rocket science, Kaz said, it just takes time“I am passionate about being able to couple my natural desire to help people with the creativity of biochemistry and nutrition.”She now specialises in helping women through menopause and offers packages, both online and from her beautifully designed Reset Lab Clinic, including testing, lifestyle and nutrition advice, and follow up support from two health coaches.Kaz’s latest reinvention is an exciting place to be, she says. “I always believed the body could heal itself given the right circumstances. When I was in the thick of menopause I felt like an old lady - I felt shipwrecked, and taking medication just didn’t sit well for me. But you can have that energy back. Knowledge is power - to know when you’re out of balance, and to heal yourself.”Kaz held her first Wanaka seminar, Sailing through Menopause, last month, and is offering another this week (Wednesday October 9, from 6.30-8.00pm) at the Lake Wanaka Centre. Find more about the Reset Lab here.PHOTOS: Supplied

The tradition of having a nice slice of home-made Christmas cake with last minute gift shopping at Kaleidoscope, at 44 Helwick Street, has come to an end. Helen Johnston’s gifts and manchester store closes its door for the last time tomorrow (Monday September 30).After 33 years as a retailer on Helwick Street, Helen has decided the time is right for her to end this chapter of her life. She said she will “miss the people” most of all; her long-established relationships with staff, customers, fellow retailers and reps.“There comes a time when you have to make a decision are you going to carry on a seven-day a week business or are you going to have some me-time,” she said. Helen moved from Dunedin to Wanaka in the mid 1970s after purchasing the Manuka Crescent Motels. She and her husband ran the motels for 11 years before deciding they want to try their hand at something completely different - retail.She took over Helwick Gifts (where the Spice Room currently is located) and within six months had changed its name to Kaleidoscope to better reflect the myriad colours and variety of retail items she stocked.In those early years in Wanaka when the local population totalled a few hundred full-time residents and visitors largely only featured in winter and summer, business wasn’t easy - you had to be careful about ordering stock for instance, Helen said. Moving into the new store at 44 Helwick Street in the 1990s. PHOTO: SuppliedShe decided to get into manchester sales as no-one else was providing that in Wanaka at the time; contacted a rep who said ‘leave it with me’ and suddenly the store was overwhelmed with huge boxes filled with linens.“We had to work out a deal where we could pay it off in three installments; but it sold really well,” Helen said.In 1996, a new set of three retail stores was built in the upper end of Helwick Street, near Brownston Street, and Kaleidoscope moved across the road to take up its current location. For 23 years, the shop has opened from 9:00am-6:00pm Monday to Friday and 9:30am-5:30pm Saturday and Sunday.Those early days were very rewarding though as she built up her loyal local clientele and, with little competition, became the go-to place for Christmas, birthdays, souvenirs and so on.“December 24th was always the biggest sales day of the year,” Helen said. A slice of Helen’s Christmas cake for her customers on December 23 and 24 became something of a tradition for those last minute Christmas shoppers.At one stage, her commitment to open her shop seven days a week got her into trouble with the law. Helen believed, as Wanaka was part of the Queenstown Lakes District, and Queenstown retailers had a dispensation allowing them to trade throughout Easter, that dispensation also applied to Wanaka retailers.Kaleidoscope’s empty front window indicates the end of an era. Melanie Craig Design, which operates next door, will expand into the shop vacated by Helen. PHOTO: Wanaka AppHaving opened her store for many years to Easter customers without any problems, a visit from a Department of Labour inspector on Easter Sunday 2004 resulted in a conviction and a change to her trading habits. The fine was waived, Helen said, but she had to pay court costs and, to the disappointment of her customers, she never opened her doors again on Easter Sunday.“I didn’t want to put myself or my staff through the apprehension of guessing is that customer an inspector, or is that one,” Helen said. “I’m happy opening my shop most days but, if I’m breaking the law, I’m just not doing it.” Helen says the retail scene has changed since those early years. There’s more local competition with many Wanaka retail stores selling gifts and souvenirs, she said, and there’s been a noticeable shift in the past five years, even from loyal local customers, to buy online or purchase in bulk from big box stores. “Our linens and manchester items used to be one of our top sellers. Now people take shopping trips to Briscoes,” she said.  “We are not the only retail people finding it challenging. I talk to my reps and its happening all over the country. Online shopping has affected a lot of brick and mortar shops.”Helen said proposed changes to Wanaka’s CBD are also going to provide challenges for retailers. “Pedestrianising the lower part of Helwick Street will not be good for retailing,” she said. “If people cannot park close to where they want to shop they will drive on.” She believes the commercial development at Three Parks will become the shopping equivalent of Frankton for locals.She also believes, even though Wanaka’s “town centre” will always be near the lake, there will be more suburbs with small retail spaces, such as the “pocket retail development” at Northlake. “We’ve got to be very careful we don’t over retail the CBD when we don’t have the population or visitors to support it,” she said.And like any retailer in her line of business, Helen has had her fair share of light-fingered shoppers over the years, but it was uncommon, she said. “We have a policy of always greeting people when they come in the door, then they know we’ve seen them.”And sometimes things are not always as they appear. Helen recounted watching a young man handle a small item on her shelf and later saw him leave the store. She looked at the shelf and noticed the item was missing before she raced out the door to confront the chap down the road.“I asked him: ‘You were just in my store and I saw you with a bottle opener in your hand and it’s not there anymore’. And he said: ‘You’re pretty sharp’. It transpired he had hidden the bottle opener in the store as it was the last one and he didn’t want it sold. Helen put it aside for him and he returned the next day to purchase it.Although the shop has been her focus for decades there have been other interests too. Helen was the secretary of Wanaka’s squash club for 28 years and is still on its committee and she served for ten years on Wanaka’s Chamber of Commerce committee in its early days.“But to be honest, running a store with all the buying and bookwork takes up a fair chunk of time.”Helen had been thinking about retiring for a while and then a friend said: ‘Helen when are you going to leave your shop; we don’t want to take you out in a wheelchair.’ And I said: ‘When I’m ready’.” And that time is now. She has promised herself a trip to Paris - “and not just for two weeks”, and said her home, purchased 19 years ago, has never been in the state she wants it. Sorting the office is her first priority; gardening the second.And then, of course, there’s the rugby. “I’m passionate about it,” she gleefully - and unexpectedly - confesses. She’s a supporter of the local team; has watched live matches at the Dunedin stadium several times; and even written poetry about it, shared on Radio Wanaka.Just as well there’s a world cup on for the next few weeks.

Mike Regal and his family hadn’t even finished unpacking the contents of their new Bevan Street home when they were evacuated in the middle of the night, as a fire on Mt Iron threatened to spread.It was a literal warm welcome for the Regals, who’d only just moved to Wanaka to start a new life in quiet central Otago, away from the madness of Auckland, after becoming the new owners of Radio Wanaka.The connection to the town had been there for many years. Wayne Johnson, who founded Radio Wanaka, gave Mike his first job in radio in Dunedin, when he worked for Radio Otago in the early 1980s.Ed Taylor, a good friend of Mike’s, bought the Radio Wanaka in 2002 and always said to Mike that he’d sell it to him “one day”. That day eventually came in April 2011 when he rang him up and told him he wanted to sell it. “I was 52 and thought ‘if I don’t do it now, I’m never going to do it’,” Mike recalls.He ditched his corporate job in the big city, packed up his life and moved to the bottom of Mt Iron to take over the community radio station.“It was a steep learning curve,” he said. “In corporate, you have a specific role. Suddenly, you are doing everything.“The biggest challenge was the technical side of things. I didn’t have Sean on the third floor anymore that I could ring to come and fix things.”It took him a couple of years to stop waking up at three o’clock in the morning worrying about things. “One day I realised things weren’t all going to blow up on the same day and it can all be fixed.”In Wanaka, he found a friendly and welcoming community that helped him feel settled from the start (fire scare aside).After eight years steering the station, Mike prides himself in the fact that they never lost a client -  and some of them have even become good friends. He also takes pride in the low staff turnover as he tries to give people the space to enjoy the lifestyle Wanaka offers.“I’m not a clock watcher. We come to Wanaka for a certain lifestyle,” he said. As long as the job is done, he’s a happy man. That lifestyle was exactly what enticed Mike to Wanaka. As he sits in his office in the Radio Wanaka building, in his plaid flannel shirt and Vans shoes, he’s a whole world away from his old corporate days in Auckland.A passionate mountain biker and skier, he’s often off the airwaves and out on the trails enjoying the outdoors. “When you come here, you have to make sure you enjoy the things that Wanaka offers,” he said.What Wanaka offers is also a sense of community like few other places still have. According to Mike, Radio Wanaka is one of about four independently-owned radio stations left in the country and, more than just being a profitable business, it also has the goal of serving the community.“Local radio is about connecting with the community,” he said. “Bigger corporations present a homogenised, general programme, they talk about what Kim Kardashian had for breakfast, while we tell you whether the Crown Range is open or not. We talk about things that affect people in the community a lot more directly.”For Mike, that’s the power of radio - the connection with the community - and that’s why community radio like Radio Wanaka has done so well even through all the changes in the media, with the digital revolution, including streaming and podcasts.He’s optimistic about the future of radio and said the industry will go through further technology advancements in the next ten or 20 years, as it moves away from the reliance on terrestrial signals. “Right now we’ve still transmitters on Mt Maude and Hill End. But we also stream on the Wanaka App and iHeartRadio. I hop in my car and I stream Radio Wanaka from the Wanaka App. Often the streams are clear as a bell, the audio is actually better.”“You’ve got to have a point of difference. As long as we’re local, that’s our point of difference.“We could play Newfoundland whaling songs 24 hours a day because the important stuff is the community stuff that goes in between, because no one else's doing that,” he said.There’s also an ease of business that bigger companies can’t offer: “If a client comes on a Friday at 5pm saying they forgot about the ad for the weekend, it’s not a problem, I live two minutes away. We can act quite quickly.” Mike admits he uses technology smartly and sometimes works from home, with his slippers on and a cup of tea in hand. In those moments, corporate life feels even further away - and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Hola! There’s music playing on Thursday night in Wanaka...and it's tango time. For a decade now local salons, ranging from restaurants and bars to people’s living rooms, have hosted a small but passionate local outpost of the tango diaspora.Sousa Jefferson is one of the area’s most enthusiastic participants of the Argentinian dance, hosting weekly ‘milonga’, or tango social events, at her home.“Argentine Tango is a social dance that has been danced for a hundred years,” Sousa told the Wanaka App. “Tango is danced in Buenos Aires at many late-night venues and on the streets.  It is a dance that connects people through a close embrace and lilting or rhythmic orchestral tango music.”Sousa has a polished concrete patio specifically crafted for an outdoor dance floor during summer months, and her living room is cleared during winter for indoor sessions.She said the group started  in Wanaka in 2009 when Kasha Szot,a ballet and contemporary dancer, opened a dance studio.It began with a weekend intensive session with Kasha and Sanjay Pancha, a Wellington-based tango dancer. Weekly beginner and improver classes and "practilongas" continued for a year.   Raul Faustino partnered with Kasha for some of the teachings. Several New Zealand tango teachers visited and taught at K DANCE as well as two famous international tango performers and teachers, Fabio Robles and Ana Andree. “The small but dedicated group of dancers learned, trained and performed together at local events. Many of them continue to share their love of tango today, in Wanaka, New Zealand-wide and around the world, after starting their journey in a humble Wanaka studio. Kasha left Wanaka to follow her love of tango around New Zealand, and overseas. One of Kasha's students was Stella Senior who five years later took up the role of teaching tango in Wanaka.“Stella Senior and Andreas Peckwitt then taught tango for 18 months between 2014 and 2015.  They started the Wanaka Tango Facebook page and classes were held at various venues around town including the Lake Wanaka Centre, Gin & Raspberry, Patagonia Chocolates and private residences. They also performed at Art in the Park.”  Since their departure for further training in Buenos Aires in 2015, Sousa took up the role of coordinator for the group.As well as hosting a local ‘practica’ which supports peer learning, she organises classes with visiting tango teachers, hosting them at her home.Graham and Gloria Whittingham from Christchurch come twice a year to teach weekend intensives. Chris Corby from Motueka came two years ago and taught an eight-week course in tango and returns at times to also teach a weekend intensive, Sousa said..  Currently Koen Michiels, a Belgian with a long involvement as a tango dancer and coach has been helping the group with a winter series of classes.Working the winter as a ski instructor at Cardrona, Koen (pronounced Kuhn) has been involved in dance since early childhood and said he was introduced to tango by visiting groups from Argentina in his home town of Schoten, near Antwerp, which holds a renowned international dance festival he worked at.After lessons in Belgium and Amsterdam, Koen followed what appears to be a familiar pathway for many tango aficionados, dancing in Paris, Italy and finally the pilgrimage to its origins in Buenos Aires and meeting the legends of the dance.“My best tango memories are probably the ones I have from dancing in the salons in Buenos Aires and the clinics I had there with Roberto Leiva,” he said. “Working with the Wanaka Tango community is great. I get out of the ski bubble once a week and I get to know a lot of nice locals.”He noted the “positive energy” of the small group and projecting energy and intimacy seems to be at the heart of tango.“I just love to teach and pass on my knowledge and passion.”It definitely forms a bond. The Wanaka Tango group now has almost 200 members on its page including many former locals taking their enthusiasm elsewhere,with tango community groups all over the country and overseas, Sousa says.“Rumour has it that Kasha Szot may soon return as a visiting teacher. At the end of November, Wanaka Tango is excited to announce the arrival of two world-class tango performers and teachers from Buenos Aires, Ariel Yanovsky and Gisela Vidal. They will also be giving a public performance at a venue yet to be determined.”“Glamourous "Show Tango" with its dramatic bold moves is really the making of performance tango dancers,” she said. “Social tango is for the pure enjoyment of the common folk of a community. Community is found wherever you happen to be, where people are dancing tango.”  PHOTO: Supplied

Wanaka artist Stephen Martyn ‘Marty’ Welch believes everyone deserves a portrait, and his vision for a worldwide collection of portraits kicks off right here in Wanaka.Marty was raised in the far North, growing up with a love of comics.“The one day I walked into a toy store in Dargaville and there was a poster of a Barbarian dude by Frank Frazetta,” he said. “I fell in love with drawing from that day.”He failed art at school, though, in a time when comics weren’t considered real art. Marty went on to join the army and would draw tattoo designs for his colleagues - and was sometimes disappointed with the tattooists’ rendering, recalling a ‘lone wolf’ that ended up looking “like a bloody hamster”.Marty ended up in Auckland working in hospitality, and when he and wife Mandy’s second son, Scott, was born with the very rare Kabuki Make Up syndrome, “everything changed”.“After the first year we’d spent all our savings and were living in the [Starship] hospital. It was a pretty horrible time,” Marty said.A nurse who had noticed the couple fraying at the edges had a chat with Marty, discovered he liked to draw and encouraged him to spend time on his art. Marty started by drawing Scott in the incubator, and went from there. “The art and the people joined and it started making sense to me. Art is about people.” He was still working part-time, but also teaching himself how to paint. He bought himself kindergarten grade paints, mastered those and gradually moved on to oils. “I’ve never had a lesson, never taken a class.”Marty became known for doing portraits of homeless and disabled people. He has painted a six feet high portrait of a burns victim’s face (a man who had endured more than 50 surgeries); large enough “so people can’t look away” from him. He says he sees people and wonders what their story is. There are the super attractive and well known, but what about the other 99.9 per cent of society, Marty asks? “I tell myself, ‘go find someone to paint, don’t get captured by someone that’s really distinguished - it doesn’t matter’.”2012 was a big year for Marty. By now an accomplished portraitist, he was approached to be part of a TV show, The Sitting. The show featured Marty conducting interviews with 20 well known New Zealanders, while also painting them.The Sitting was filmed in an intense three months. “It wasn’t the nicest experience but it was an achievement and we’re proud of it.” Each painting was then auctioned for Starship Hospital, raising around $160,000.“We’d lived there for about five years straight. There was no way we could repay them,” he said.Marty has painted scientist/inventor Sir Ray Avery, who wrote about him in his book ‘The Power of Us’, which celebrates New Zealanders who dare to dream. Ray went on to auction a blank canvas for Marty to paint someone’s portrait. He’s done this twice now, raising money for one of Ray’s inventions, the life pod infant incubator.Marty has also painted three New Zealand governors general - Sir Jerry Mataparae, Sir Anand Satyanand, Sir Michael Hardie Boys.“I meet everybody I paint. I don’t do it from photos - I don’t know that person; I don’t know their story.” He likes to observe their mannerisms, and hear about their life. The portrait naturally evolves from that, he says.“To do a good portrait you’ve got to know or understand someone. EDAP is about that. It’s not about a reward or a pat on the back.”EDAP is Marty’s project “everyone deserves a portrait”, born in those early days at Starship with Scotty. It’s his goal to create a series of portraits celebrating ordinary yet extraordinary people around the world. Marty has already painted five portraits for the series, and has his eye on a controversial Antarctic scientist, and an African farmer participating in a UN programme helping to drastically reduce child mortality.He is now in talks with Netflix about EDAP.Funding is the biggest challenge though, and when Marty found the worldwide EDAP wasn’t getting much traction, he thought “why don’t I just do a smaller, community version?”That was possible in Wanaka, his home for the past six years. At the end of the eventful 2012, during which he won a major art prize, the Adam Portraiture Award, Marty drove his van to the South Island for a week. He arrived in Wanaka, a place he’d never heard of, on a cold July day. The town was under an inversion layer and Matry sat at the lakefront and pictured his kids growing up here.Because of Scotty’s challenges, the family had to think hard about moving. But once they decided, he brought Mandy to Wanaka on a brilliantly sunny day. As they drove into town, Marty said: “Where the f--- did these mountains come from?” “Within a few weeks I knew I’d made the right choice about moving, after walking down Helwick Street and hearing people calling out “hi Scotty!” to my son. We never looked back. I love it. I love the mountains, I love getting out hiking and camping.”He has a small studio at the Wanaka Arts Centre and is on the board.“There’s some really good art being made in this town,” Marty says. He is planning to add to that with an Upper Clutha EDAP exhibition in November. “I want to celebrate ourselves with some art, before the summer crowd gets here. Just for us, the people who keep the town running.”He’s completed six local portraits so far: his son Scott (“the Wanaka volunteer”); barista Robert Holt; chestnut grower Greg Inwood, long-term local Marg Scaife, teenager Ferdia O’Connell, and primary school student Louis Dorset. He has six more to go.He and Mandy are looking for practical help with the exhibition, which they hope to hold in a large marquee, with hay bales for seating, a giant lolly scramble for the kids, and a spit-roast barbecue. They have a vision for an accessible, fun, community event - not a highbrow art exhibition.“We feel uncomfortable asking for money, that’s why we’re asking for some time, or help from companies that might be able to contribute, such as farms, bakeries, breweries, or vineyards.”The event will include a blank Stephen Martyn Welch (his art world name) canvas up for auction. “There are people who need to be celebrated,” Marty says of EDAP. “I’m not trying to judge them, I just want to chronicle them. It’s something that gives me purpose.”To find out more about Marty, his work, and EDAP, or to contact him and Mandy about the Wanaka event, visit his website.PHOTO: Supplied 

There’s not much Michael Ross doesn’t know about local government in Otago and Southland. So how did this former council chief executive find himself on the other side of the fence, lobbying Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) and the Queenstown Airport Corporation (QAC) at the helm of the Wanaka Stakeholders Group? Michael grew up in Oamaru and started his career working as an accountant. While living in Queenstown, he became a board member of the Queenstown Promotion Board because of his interest in tourism. He managed to persuade QLDC to introduce rate-based funding for the Queenstown Promotion Board. This success raised his profile locally so that when the role of deputy general manager at QLDC came up, Michael’s application was successful. This was the start of a long and varied career in local government. Michael laughingly describes himself as “the most recycled chief executive in Otago/Southland local government”. Michael served at QLDC from 1989 to 1995, looking after the Wanaka Community Board because of his close family ties to Wanaka. He was then appointed chief executive to the Clutha District Council, where he spent five years before moving to Southland District Council for another four years, also as chief executive. After this, he moved to Oamaru to serve as chief executive of Waitaki District Council, where he remained until his retirement from local government in 2017. During this time, as Michael moved from place to place for work, the one constant in his life was Wanaka. Michael’s family have owned property here for 52 years, and Michael remembers childhood holidays at Glendhu Bay even before that. “My dad eventually got sick of camping and bought a section,” Michael said. “I love Wanaka to bits - I’ve always wanted to be here but struggled to find suitable employment in the area.” So, one way and another, it seemed a natural choice for Michael to retire to Wanaka. Thus far, Michael’s retirement has been a busy time. Like many people in Wanaka and the surrounding area, Michael was concerned about plans for developing Queenstown Airport. A year ago, a small group of people started getting together to discuss concerns around the airport. In particular, at that time there was a public consultation around plans to increase the air noise boundary of Queenstown Airport.The fledgling Wanaka group made a submission to council on the air noise boundary, in support of the Queenstown Stakeholders Group. The noise boundary consultation process attracted 1500 submissions, 92.5 per cent of which were opposed to any change to the air noise boundary in Queenstown.Then on October 2, 2018, QAC’s CEO announced that there would be no further moves to increase the air noise boundary of Queenstown Airport, and that the focus would now shift to developing the Wanaka Airport Masterplan.“That’s what really got us [the Wanaka Stakeholders Group] started,” Michael said. “I put my hand up to put a group together, because I felt that my local government background would be helpful.”The Wanaka Stakeholders Group has now become a more formal entity, with about 2700 members in the Wanaka area. The group is now an incorporated society and has developed its website at www.protectwanaka.nz.Like many people in the Wanaka area, Michael was concerned that the community had not been consulted on the real extent of what was planned for Wanaka airport. “There was a consultation process back in 2016 to 2017, but it was all about leasing the airport. The possibility of commercial jet services arriving in Wanaka was not fully discussed with the community back then,” he said. After this consultation, QLDC issued a long-term lease on Wanaka Airport to the QAC. At the time, council undertook to retain ultimate control of the airport through mechanisms contained in the lease and via QAC’s Statement of Intent process.Michael said that despite numerous requests, he and the group have been unable to view details of the lease, so they can’t be sure it actually does stipulate that QLDC will retain ultimate control of the airport.“Wanaka Airport is a community asset that’s being taken away from the community,” Michael said. “There hasn’t been a transparent and open process - this community has not been consulted on the real extent of what was really planned.”Michael added that Wanaka is a community that cares a lot about the future of the area. “The reality is that when we set up a stand in the main street, people walk up and say ‘where can I sign?’ We don’t even have to explain what we’re lobbying for - everyone is now aware of the issue. ” A criticism recently levelled at the Wanaka Stakeholders Group is that it doesn’t represent the interests of local businesses. Michael refuted this claim, adding that among the 2,750 members of WSG, about 500 identified themselves as being local business owners.  Michael estimates that his work for WSG takes up about 10 to 20 hours a week. Outside of this, he is a keen golfer and also enjoys the other outdoor pursuits that Wanaka is famous for: mountain biking, skiing and boating. Michael and his wife Susie have three adult daughters and are currently enjoying a visit from their first grandchild. PHOTO: Supplied

At first meeting, you could be forgiven for thinking Caroline Oliver is an Auckland ‘lady who lunches’, but there’s much more to her smartly-dressed, sociable persona - she recently worked for a biotech company where her PhD thesis and ongoing work have contributed to a ground-breaking approach to cancer treatment.Caroline has lived in Wanaka for almost a year and has made herself very much at home in this community, leading music sessions for preschoolers, chairing the Wanaka branch of the National Party, and as a member of St Columba Anglician church’s committee, the Upper Clutha Parish Vestry, the Wanaka branch of the Royal Society of NZ, and service group Rotary.It’s a long way from her role as research officer in the Kode Biotech laboratory at the Auckland University of Technology, from which her work has been cited in more than 40 published papers.Kode is involved with a range of biosurface engineering techniques, and one of its innovative technologies is licensed to an immunotherapy company which is now on the brink of releasing a personalised treatment of cancer. Clinical trials have resulted in an unheard of 100 per cent regression rate, Caroline said.The synthetic animal-antigen molecule ‘AGI 134’, Kode’s patented treatment, is injected into primary tumours. The immune system rejects animal tissue, so it attacks the modified tumour and in the process destroys the tumour. Meanwhile the immune system is educated to recognise the person’s own tumour antigens, and it destroys unmodified primary and secondary tumours.“I’m very proud of the company and very privileged to be involved,” Caroline said. Her link to the company dates back to when she worked at an Auckland blood transfusion centre. She had a staff member called Stephen Henry (now a professor), who went on to establish Kode Biotech. Kode was awarded NZ Innovator in Health Science in 2015.‘AGI 134’ has been through hazard trials and clinical trials, with incredible results, Caroline said. The therapy secured US Food and Drug Administration approval last year. “It will be so dramatic when it’s on the market,” she said. “It will revolutionise cancer therapy.” Kode has more than 100 patents for different therapeutic techniques, and Caroline herself has two patents: for neutralising antibodies, and measuring cell survival.She left Kode last year when her contract expired. “I’d made my mark. I thought it was unfair to others who need the funding, and I didn’t want to stay in Auckland.”Caroline’s involvement in the field was almost accidental, as her heart was in working on tissue transplant techniques. But being married with three children meant developing her career further wasn’t really on the cards. “I fell off the ladder,” she said.She would go to university from 9am to 2.30pm then race off to pick up the kids from school.“You might have done something amazing but you had to leave it for tomorrow,” she said, although she admitted to sometimes heading back to the lab after 8pm.She earned a Master of Applied Science, and a PhD, in which she looked at neutralising blood group antigens.“Unknown to me, it would become the basis for the Kode cancer therapy,” she said. “I was just delighted to contribute what I did.”After finishing her PhD in 2013 she was accepted at both Cambridge and Oxford to do further study on stem cell and regenerative medicine technology. This self-confessed “party person” livened up the workplace at the Stem Cell Immunotherapy Lab and Research Labs in Oxford University; and she is pleased the staff morning teas she instigated are still continuing. “I’m very collegial in my work.”She also spent time in stem cell laboratories in Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol, Kings College, and the John Goldman Centre, London.After her divorce in 2016 she built a house in Wanaka, not far from the house she and her husband had used as a holiday home since 2009. She joined St Columba, which she loves for its modern traditional approach and “intelligent level of worship”. The church is - and always has been - a big part of her life, and Caroline says her belief boils down to two things: “Love each other as you love yourself; do to others as you would have them do to you.”She also values the structure the church provides in caring for others. She has always done a lot of voluntary work - she inherited an “altruistic gene” from her parents: “Cubs, Brownies, school committees, church,” she lists. “To me, church is outside the church.” Caroline led a pre-school Mainly Music session in Auckland for 14 years, and now coordinates the “wonderful programme” here in Wanaka. She also provided ‘science in the classroom sessions’ for Year 5/6 at Cornwall Park and Glen Innes school (she has a Teacher Aide Certificate) and is hoping to offer the same thing here in Wanaka. There’s more: Caroline sings soprano in the church choir and is practising for The Messiah later this year, as well as studying a certificate of small business management (to support her dress-making - she makes most of her own clothes).It’s a diverse range of activities. “I describe my life as a series of Venn diagrams - and I’m in the middle,” Caroline said.A recent full day included Mainly Music in the morning, lunching with friends, attending the Lazareth Quartet in the evening, followed by her business class - and managing to fit in a glass of wine along the way.“You could not do that in Auckland because you wouldn’t have time with the travel,” she said.Caroline is determined to make the most of life after watching two close friends die in the past year; and she is excited about the imminent release of the promising new cancer treatment to which she has contributed. “I feel I’ve ticked all the good boxes,” she said.PHOTO: Supplied

In the 29 years he’s been volunteering for the Wanaka Fire Brigade, Tony Wellman has seen it all.An electrician by trade, Tony is also the leader of the Wanaka Road Crash Rescue Team which is off to France next month to compete in the World Crash Rescue Championship after winning the Australasian Road Rescue Championships in July. The British are the current world champions but Tony believes Wanaka has what it takes to steal that top spot.“You’ve always got a chance on the day. Who said Australia was going to beat New Zealand last weekend [in the rugby]?” he said.Despite his three decades as a volunteer, Tony said he started out late in the brigade, compared to some of his friends at the time. Yet most of them are gone and he’s still going.Volunteering for the rescue team is a big commitment — and one that affects the whole family.“Training is two hours a week on Mondays. Then you have the call outs, which can be anything from a quarter of an hour for a false alarm to four or five hours. We cover up to Haast for car rescues so you could be away for three or four hours quite easily,” Tony said.It’s not just the number of hours - it’s also the fact that you can never predict when your help might be needed.“You have to either be single or have a very understanding partner, otherwise there’s no way you can do this.”Luckily for Tony, his wife understands his passion for helping others.Tony doesn’t like talking about himself but is well aware that he and his team regularly save lives. He doesn’t do it to boost his ego, though, and says a big part of the reason he’s kept going for so long is the Wanaka community. “The town looks after you. That’s why it’s like a payback thing,” he said.His dad was heavily involved in Rotary when he was younger and he remembers people trying to convince him to leave the fire brigade and join the Rotary. But his passion for the work of the fire brigade ran stronger and he never left.Tony’s family moved to Luggate when he was just four-years-old, then to Wanaka when he was about 15. He’s a son of this region and said he remains passionate about it, despite all the changes the area has gone through in recent years.Wanaka, in particular, has gone through explosive growth since Tony moved here but he says, at heart, it’s really still a small town.“People are just lovely, they really do look after you.”While people might still know you by first name, Tony said the growth is even more noticeable when he thinks about the number of callouts the fire brigade volunteers get these days.“When I started we only did fires and the odd car crash. We went from 50 calls a year to now about 200 calls a year. We’re way busier.”The numbers might get higher but the level of attention paid to each person who needs help never changes.These days, the fire brigade gets a lot more mental health support than it used to get when Tony started but he said some days are still tough. And while the number of callouts is higher, the reasons are very much the same old ones. “Drink driving, ice, people not driving to their abilities... People thinking they’re awesome rally drivers, then next thing you know, we’re picking them up off the road,” he said.“Some things you see and you never forget.”Fortunately, that also applies to good things, like the days when you get to save someone’s life. Those are etched in Tony’s memories even more strongly than the bad days.He wishes more people would join the brigade and experience the joy of making that big a difference to someone else’s life.PHOTO: Wanaka App

What does it mean to be gifted?This is something Danielle Nicholson, a teacher at Central Otago REAP’s One Day School, thinks about often. She leads a programme for gifted Year Five and Six children who are pulled out of the regular classroom one day a week and put in a learning environment catering specifically to their needs.“There’s a great deal of misunderstanding about what the word means,” Danielle said. “Being gifted doesn’t mean a child will be successful - it’s really important these children are taught to use their gift.” Surprisingly, gifted children are much more likely to fail university than other high achieving students, which is just one of the many unexpected things about the ‘gifted’ label.While best diagnosed by a psychologist, there are a range of traits often shared among gifted children: having a greater depth of emotion than others at a young age, a stronger sense of idealism and justice and often presenting as overly sensitive. A high IQ may play a role, but experts disagree on the efficacy of IQ as a measurement of giftedness, and it can be other characteristics, from a highly developed sense of humour to a tendency to disengage in the classroom, that can indicate a child might be gifted. Helping gifted children manage these varied traits - and the advantages and disadvantages they bring - is Danielle’s specialty.After first training as a teacher in her hometown of Auckland, Danielle almost immediately found her niche working with gifted children. A two-year ‘trial run’ moving down south with her husband and first baby while on maternity leave became permanent when her dream job became available through REAP. After 13 years teaching the One Day School, she is still incredibly passionate about the role. Our conversation ranges from discussing hobbies to her studies and where she grew up, but it keeps quickly returning to gifted children and the One Day School programme. Being gifted is labelled as a disability in some countries, and Danielle says without nurturing it, it can have serious impacts on someone’s life as a child and then as they become an adult. “Generally speaking, boys identify as developing behavioural problems and girls have emotional problems. We diagnose boys to girls 5:1 because boys’ symptoms are more noticeable.”Everything she teaches the children must help them succeed in life far beyond school, and it’s far from the maths or science test-measured environment of a regular classroom. “If it’s only useful this year I won’t teach it.”A tall order - but Danielle thrives in her chosen environment, and ongoing research informs the way she teaches. “The lens through which these children see the world is different from the everyday child,” Danielle says. “We teach them about social, emotional, and ethical development as well as high level thinking so they can learn more about themselves and become successful humans.” And interestingly, she wants them to fail sometimes: “If a gifted child doesn’t reach the point where they fail at something, they’re not pushing themselves hard enough.“There’s a dopamine hit that comes from doing challenging activities, and they feel it more because they’re generally more emotional, but get the opportunity less often [because they’re less stimulated in a regular classroom].”After repeating the mantra to challenge themselves to her students many times, Danielle decided it was time to do the same herself, which is how she ended up founding and running the Contact Epic bike race (around Lake Hawea) without any specific experience in the area. While she was looking for inspiration, the bike race idea was floated by her sporty husband (Sergeant Aaron Nicholson who retired from the police force in 2018). Danielle’s not one for bike riding but she is an “organiser by nature”.“My husband is massively into the outdoors and does the exciting stuff. I sit in the office and do logistics.” She says the multi-job life is typical of people in Wanaka. The Nicholsons have two children who each have “very different learning styles” - the elder is now at university and the younger one is at Mount Aspiring College. They’ve become true Wanaka kids - one even called her a ‘Jafa’ not long ago. Danielle wears her Aucklander badge proudly, but she loves Wanaka too.“I don’t love the cold but I love the people and the sense of community and that all groups here intermingle - even if by accident. Your character rings true in the end when you live here.”She’s also a keen skier; loves walking, yoga, wine, food, and people but, as it does throughout our conversation, her work returns to the fore and is at the top of her list of interests. “My true passion is teaching gifted children.”It’s rewarding work: Danielle said some of the most heartening moments have been watching the students learn about world events, from climate change to the Christchurch terror attacks, and talk compassionately and thoughtfully about how they can take action to make positive change. When I met with Danielle, she’d been visited that morning by a former student who is now studying at an overseas university.“He’s just divine,” she says “and doing incredibly well. He talks a lot about the impact the school had on him. I think he’ll go on to do real good in the world.”PHOTO: Supplied

Wanaka GP Susie Meyer may not fit the stereotype of a rural general practitioner (GP), but that’s not surprising, as she followed a less traditional path into medicine. The fifth of 11 children born to a family of “careless Catholics” in Washington State, Susie was a cheeky bespectacled girl with her nose in a book (when she wasn’t playing sport). She came from a working class family where everyone grew up to be a teacher or “helper” of some kind.She aspired to change the world as an activist and, at university in the late 1970s, it was all about feminism, along with all the other things that came with the 70s.After dropping out of university in the US, Susie and a friend became ski bums and moved to Wyoming. “We thought skiers had a cool lifestyle.” She and a friend drove a borrowed station wagon to ski resort Jackson Hole, where she stayed for four years. After meeting a Kiwi who suggested she study medicine, Susie agreed and moved to Auckland where she enrolled at university.“I thought it would be a good idea to be a doctor and do some good, so I was driven by that.” She was certainly driven: first she had to complete a BSc; having never done sciences, she enlisted the help of tutors to get started and read the chemistry text book cover to cover. Susie likes forming groups, and at medical school she set up study groups (“I picked people who were smarter than me”) so her learning was social.Susie (seated centre) with four of her ten siblings. PHOTO: SuppliedThere was plenty of scope for Susie’s activism at medical school - she wanted to promote cooperation over competition. She worked to change the university’s policy of posting people’s ranked exam results to using code numbers instead of names; arranged for better access to counsellors; and organised tutorials for Pasifika students.It was the 1980s, and while Susie liked New Zealand’s “girls can do anything” approach, she noticed it was tempered with “as long as they make everyone a cup of tea too”.She decided to live in Dunedin for her intern years, and spent three years at the hospital before getting winter work on Wanaka’s skifields, which she alternated with summers at the hospital. In those days, Treble Cone’s on-duty doctor was also a ski patroller, pulling rigs and exploding bombs for avalanche control. Susie loved it.When she graduated she was 35 with a young son (Beach, now 28-years-old, with her partner Whitney Thurlow). Susie decided to take her father’s advice: “Don’t worry about what you want to do, worry about where you want to live.” Susie wanted to live in a small town and Wanaka fit the bill. As a training GP she commuted daily to Alexandra or Queenstown - over the gravel Crown Range. There were no female GPs in Wanaka, and people kept asking Susie to set up a practice. She initially set up on her own in 1995, in a small sleepout behind the dentist, which she decorated with items from home. “It was all very homespun.”Susie has kept active. PHOTO: SuppliedSusie had trained with Lucy O’Hagan and Simon Brebner in Dunedin, and connected well with them - all three were a little “out of the norm”, she said.She asked them to join her in her fledgling practice and they agreed. “Setting up the new practice created diversity in Wanaka township,” Susie said. But she and Lucy had to find a new formula of working as GPs. “Basically we had to re-invent the model, because we didn’t have wives at home.” They came up with the shared patient concept, and worked in teams.The practice, Aspiring Medical, eventually moved to premises on Dungarvon Street, then expanded; and finally moved to the new Wanaka Lakes Health Centre in 2011.It was a busy life. Susie and Whitney also operated a business called Wild Walks for eight years (it has now been amalgamated with Aspiring Guides). Susie would be on call at night for the practice 14 hours at a time; she often worked nights and weekends, and missed countless social engagements. She had her first Christmas off three years ago.“These sorts of commitments are a service, a career of dedicating yourself to the community,” she said. “Also, these things are not done in isolation there is a whole team of health workers supporting me.”The work was varied and challenging. Dealing with car accidents, and supporting people who are dying are some of the hardest aspects of a rural general practice, she said.Susie also maintained her involvement with groups. She served on a range of advisory committees, including the national advisory committee for the Royal NZ College of GPs (RNZCGP). She was a member of the Central Lakes Health Network, advising the Southern District Health Board on service delivery in the district, and teacher liaison for the RNZCGP. She taught undergraduate and postgraduates in medicine for 17 years, which took her to many practices around Otago and Southland. She was instrumental in negotiating for the Wanaka after hours service that she believes is the gold standard for care. Susie’s involvement has been such that last weekend she was recognised by the RNZCGP for a career of community service.Related: GP recognised for community serviceAfter 25 years in Wanaka, Susie says the issues of equity and access to health care services remain, but while public health care stops at Dunstan Hospital in Clyde, Wanaka’s access to private care has been maintained - for example, you can usually be seen by a GP on the same day you call to book an appointment.“People who come here now have less difficulty getting access to health care. We are much more of an urban environment,” she said. There’s a flip side: our rapid population growth is challenging infrastructure development, she said. And the fact that we are the furthest community from a base hospital remains an issue. The answer for now is that rural GPs have to be upskilled, Susie said.She retired from clinical work in March this year. She retired before 65, she said, because she was “worried about becoming an old fuddy-duddy doctor”. Susie wanted to stay dynamic in her approach but figured she may not be as sharp as she was at 35. Plus, she wanted to be more creative and she’s seen too many people retire too late to enjoy it. She wanted to take advantage of having kept active with skiing, tramping, biking and walking.Being a GP in a small town means you know a lot about people, and while you may get approached in the supermarket for health advice, you’re also very aware of the people around you and what they’re going through, Susie said. “The thing I’ll probably miss is knowing people in depth.”“I want to be more creative, free of time pressure, free of the burden of working so much,” she said. “My life used to be scheduled six months ahead. Now I don’t have any time pressure.”She has some plans for retirement, such as a few writing projects to finish - including a young-adult novel which she somehow managed to write in what spare time she has. She might try to publish it. “I’m a sort of ambitious character.”She has also written her own story of doctoring in Wanaka, which will appear in the upcoming second edition of Skirt Tales (an update of the Suffrage centennial historical accounts of women in the district) - her “first published piece”.Susie has retired from general practice but not from activism. “I want to do some good activist work. I’ve done women, I’ve done health; I’d like to do something for the environment. I’m going to see if I can offer something,” she said.

Machu Picchu beckons but first Carol needs to raise thousands of dollars and go to the movies. That’s Carol Bradley’s focus as her year long quest to raise awareness of mental health issues comes to fruition.Next Friday (August 2) an audience of 70 plus will attend a special screening of Disney’s Lion King at Paradiso and hear Carol speak on behalf of the Mental Health Foundation (MHF). The price of the movie ticket includes a donation to the cause as Carol aims to raise in excess of $4000 for the foundation.In addition to watching the movie, Carol will be holding raffles, sizzling sausages, and handing out spot prizes and vouchers generously donated by local businesses and organisations. “I’ve been blown away by the kindness and generosity of locals and also the stories that are coming in, as well, about other people’s struggle with mental health,” she said. “I wanted to do something that would bring the community together but also be uplifting and kind,” Carol said. She selected the movie because it deals with grief and survivor’s guilt but also compassion, friendship and loyalty.A vegetarian, Carol takes one for the team at her fundraising sausage sizzle outside Mitre 10. PHOTO: Wanaka App When she’s not raising awareness on behalf of the MHF, this full-time working mum teaches physical education and health at Mt Aspiring College (MAC). Born in England, Carol chose her teaching vocation in the 1990s starting out as a physical education teacher in 1992. In those days, PE teachers were also cross-trained in personal and social health (PSE) and within three years she was taking the lead in PSE education as dean at a sixth form college.“Back then it was sexuality, drugs and alcohol. Now, when we talk about health, it’s always about wellbeing.”Asked to define wellbeing, Carol said coming to New Zealand and discovering the Maori philosophy of wellness, or hauora, “really resonated” with her. The four dimensions of hauora - mental emotional wellbeing (self-confidence), social wellbeing (self-esteem), spiritual wellbeing (personal beliefs), and physical wellbeing (health) are the foundation stones of wellbeing - “when everything is in a complete state of balance.” This philosophy is encapsulated in Te Whare tapa Wha - the four walls of the Whare where if one wall doesn’t have strong foundations, it will affect the other three, she said. As a teacher, she recognises that today’s students are facing a range of wellness issues with mental health and mindfulness becoming increasingly important as, research indicates, New Zealanders tend not to discuss the subject. “We’re very good at keeping our bodies fit and healthy but not so much our minds,” Carol said. “When it comes to mental health, we close things down rather than talk about it.”Four years ago, she went to Australia and trained in the “Mindfulness for Schools” project and brought that experience back to MAC where it was formally introduced to the curriculum. Carol, with her boys Red and Tay, in Ubud, Bali. PHOTO: Supplied “Teaching has to be relevant, up-to-date and appropriate,” she said, and today’s teenage “stress” is triggered by factors she never had to experience. She admits when she was a teenager in the 1980s her peers didn’t talk about anxiety or depression. “We’d say we were a bit sad or down but a word like anxiety wasn’t a part of our language.”Today, anxiety is experienced by most teenagers, Carol said, and much of it stems from social media, such as cyber bullying, sexting, gender roles and body image. The prevalence of personal phones and devices and the rise of social media indicates today’s kids are much more disconnected, she said, and she’s now “spending time teaching empathy”.“Our kids do all their chatting through their phones, so they’ve lost the natural ability to empathise. You can’t tell how a person’s feeling if you’re not looking them in the eye and being fully present.”And Machu Picchu - well that’s the “bonus” to this year of raising mental health awareness. With her 50th birthday on the horizon, Carol said she had been looking for something to sink her teeth into when she discovered the MHF challenge to raise awareness, which finishes with an epic adventure to Machu Picchu, Peru. “It ticks all the boxes for me. It is something I want to do as a mum, first of all, to show my kids that what you put your mind to you can do. You can be anything and do anything; you just have to have the heart to achieve your goals.”Carol also sees this year long effort as reinforcing her credibility as a teacher. “I need to be able to walk the walk. It’s too easy just to talk it up but not do anything.”“This challenge has been a personal project where I could give a little back and, besides, Machu Picchu was always on my bucket list.”Together with 12 strangers from around the country, each with their own personal reasons to promote MHF awareness, Carol signed up for the challenge which culminates in a 12 day Inca Trail trek to Machu Picchu, starting September 6.“It will be incredible when I get there - I’ll be living the dream,” Carol said.Between now and then though, there’s a lot of planning, fundraising, school class work, and packing to go. And going to the movies, of course. There are still tickets available on facebook Carol says, but she expects a last minute rush. For movie tickets click here. Anyone just wishing to donate to the cause click here.