Sean O’ConnellSUE WARDSA quote by Albert Einstein hangs in Sean O’Connell’s office: "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.” It serves as a reminder to Sean and his staff to look at things a bit differently, helping Sean, an Irishman in Wanaka, live a creatively practical life.Sean is a busy man, running a design business, helping build his family home, and poking fun at Wanaka issues once a week as his cartooning alter-ego, Penbroke.He was born and raised on the Irish-speaking west coast of Ireland, in Connemara."Where I grew up was probably 99 percent Catholic. If you weren’t Catholic you probably wouldn’t admit it.” Ireland was "well shackled to the Catholic Church” in those days, Sean said."For hundreds of years the fight for independence and the fight for the church went hand in hand. Now the pendulum has swung the other way.” The exposure of years of sexual offending by Catholic priests has played a large part in people’s distrust of the church, Sean said.In his own boarding school, the students knew which priests to avoid. One of those priests was later imprisoned."The Bishop of Galway used to come and give us lectures on the evils of sex before marriage,” Sean said. It turned out the Bishop was having a relationship with his housekeeper, fathering her son."The rank hypocrisy annoyed Irish people the most,” Sean said.Sean studied industrial design in Dublin for two years and Limerick for a further two years before working for a design consultancy in Dublin. After a couple of years he moved to London to make enough money to travel. His work as a freelance industrial designer there covered everything from infrared sensors to beer taps.In 1988 he and a mate made it to Sydney, where Sean spent the next 16 years. He was joined by wife Claire (they had met at college), and they had two of their sons in Sydney, Oisín, 18, and Ferdia, 16. (Rory, 11, was born in Dunedin.)Sean’s design work led him to New Zealand. While in Sydney he worked mostly for General Electric, visiting New Zealand to work with Fisher & Paykel. He and Claire were thinking of moving to hinterland NSW, where they would have more space, but after a 10 day holiday in New Zealand they decided to move here instead, choosing Wanaka as their favourite place over Karitane, Clyde and Glenorchy.Sean’s first job in Wanaka was selling real estate. Commission-only sales meant an erratic income, and the experience was a crash course in how the Wanaka community operated."I was a bit naive thinking I could move into a small community and form those trusted relationships straight away,” he said.When Wanaka Signs came on the market, he and Claire thought it would be a good business in a growing town, and they were right. "We also thought it was one of the few creative businesses we could do in Wanaka.” That was 2007, and the O’Connells recently clocked up 10 years in the business."I enjoy it. No two days are the same.” One day it’s graphic design, the next he’s putting signs on cars, or climbing ladders to put them on a building. The business weathered the recession in 2008/9, and in the past 18 months, Sean said, "Wanaka has found its sixth gear.”While Sean’s training was in product design, he always liked drawing and illustrating. So when Nikki Heath, co-owner of the Wanaka Sun, approached him about seven years ago to ask if he would draw a weekly cartoon for the community newspaper, Sean was keen.They came up with the name ‘Penbroke’ - a play on Wanaka’s former name Pembroke - and Sean reckons he’s only missed five or six editions since then.There have been surprisingly few controversies about his weekly cartoons. A cartoon about tourists’ driving attracted hate mail from overseas (well, one letter from Australia), and his cartoons about the rowing club’s search for a home provoked comment (Sean acknowledges the rowing club’s proposed waterfront home is a controversial site, but is happy with the decision).His cartoons often feature a salty old bloke, partly inspired by Wal in Footrot Flats: the Speights-drinking, shorts-year-round, Southern Man. "Everybody knows people like that.” He has noticed a "southern uniform”, and Southern Man’s cartoon wife is usually wearing it.A Penbroke cartoon from 2014.Sean has a tight timeframe for the weekly cartoon: the editor lets him know the stories for the week on Wednesday afternoon and he has until early evening to deliver. Sometimes it takes him 15 minutes, sometimes 45. "Sometimes it will come straight to you.” The criteria: it has to be funny and not offensive.People sometimes ask him to do a cartoon about Trump, or women’s rights, he said. "But it has to be topical and funny - not necessarily related to Wanaka, but it has to be in that week’s newspaper.”He admires British cartoonist Gerald Scarfe and Ireland’s Tom Mathews, but believes: "Down south there’s not an appetite for that sort of cutting political stuff. Gerald Scarfe was the ultimate cartoonist - the stuff he did of Maggie Thatcher was brutal. But withering is not on the menu down here.”Sean said he doesn’t see people with a cartoonist’s eye, but his observations suggest he does. ("I’ve always seen John Key, with his high forehead and long nose, as a vampire”, for example). He won’t be drawn on specific "eejits” around town, though. "I haven’t done any scathing cartoons. The ones that people will say something to you about, the ones people relate to more, are the jokey ones.”So he’s "not on any moral crusade”, it’s just good clean fun. He has drawn more than 400 cartoons by now, and hopes to one day compile the best 100 or so in a book, maybe to mark 10 years of work.Sean hasn’t returned to Ireland for eight years (he misses it, but is always glad to leave after a few weeks, he said). He’s part of this community, he’s been on the Montessori board of trustees, coached soccer and rowing, and has watched the town dealing with growing pains."Everybody lives in Wanaka for a reason. We didn’t want to live in Queenstown, we thought it was too busy.” Wanaka is getting busier, but Sean said the development will continue whether we like it or not. "The challenge is affordable housing and infrastructure.”Retaining Wanaka’s town centre and a sense of community is important to him. "I like that you can go into town and you’re always going to meet people. That seems to be the thing most people talk about - wanting to retain a sense of community.”Sean’s mix of fantasy and abstract thinking are helping maintain that sense of community too, through his business - and his cartoons, which give us the opportunity to laugh at ourselves.PHOTO: Supplied

Brian and his wife Maureen.MADDY HARKERBrian Cleugh, one of the founding members of the Upper Clutha Tramping Club, was awarded the club’s first ever life membership at a club meeting this month.Brian had been with the club since its formation in 2002, serving 14 years on the committee, including two as president."Brian’s wealth of experience and local knowledge has been absolutely invaluable to the club,” former president Karen Marinkovic said."If you are up in the hills and want to know the name of some distant mountain, Brian will know. If you are planning a trip into unfamiliar country, and need advice as to the best route, Brian is the man to ask.”Brian has been a member of the New Zealand Alpine Club since 1956. He has climbed extensively in New Zealand, and has also made expeditions to the Himalayas and Andes mountains.Highlights of his time with the club include reconnoitring and then introducing other club members to new destinations, particularly Queens Drive on the Remarkables, and Mount Armstrong and Mount Cross above the Haast Pass.Noting that "behind every great man is a great woman”, Marinkoviç also expressed the club’s gratitude to Brian’s wife Maureen, who has accompanied him on many of his adventures.PHOTO: Supplied

Janelle and Pierre ChampagnatMADDY HARKERFor free spirits Pierre and Janelle Champagnat, a move from Auckland to Wanaka and a serendipitous business opportunity have enabled the couple to live a simpler life.Pierre and Janelle are the representatives for three European ski products here in New Zealand: the Yooner (a sit-ski), the Wingjump (the world's first pair of wings designed to enhance skiing), and the Skiddie (a pocket-sized wheel you can attach to your ski tips so they don’t have to be carried).The couple are bringing these "ski thrills” to New Zealand to offer something different, something quirky, to New Zealand snowsports lovers. Their business motto is "why zig when you can zag?”, pointing out there are "too many ziggers in this world”.Pierre and Janelle describe themselves as unconventional; they don’t strive for success in the traditional sense."Our top value is actually freedom - it’s important to us. We have the freedom of this beautiful place for a start,” Janelle said. "We don’t see success as what a lot of people see success as. To us freedom and not having an attachment to material things, that’s really important. We like the simplicity of our lives and having the choice to live our lives our way.”The couple moved to Wanaka in January without a plan for work, but the perfect opportunity presented itself in Yooner.For Pierre, moving to Wanaka felt like returning home: he grew up in Annecy, a town in southeast France which sits on the northern tip of Lake Annecy and is surrounded by mountains.Annecy’s resemblance to Wanaka is uncanny."It’s very similar to Wanaka in a lot of ways, and both places have something very majestic about them. It was the word that first came to mind when I came here: majestic,” Pierre said.Pierre and Janelle are already well integrated into the local community: They’re members of the Chamber of Commerce, Cube Entrepreneurship Series, Wanaka Ski Club, the "Newish to Wanaka” Facebook page and more."We felt incredibly welcomed by the community when we got here,” Janelle said. "We love new people and new things, so getting to know people hasn’t been hard for us.”Like many recent Wanaka arrivals, the pair moved from Auckland on a whim in search of a simpler life."Last year we didn’t intend on moving anywhere, but Wanaka came to mind,” Janelle said. "We came to visit and just knew in our gut that it was right.”The pair met on a blind date in Auckland in 2013. Pierre, who has two children, is trained as a chef, and ran Pyrenees Cafe in Auckland before moving South. Janelle, as well as being a mother of six, is a writer who has also worked as a life coach.Pierre grew up in the mountains, skiing, working as a ski instructor, and having all sorts of outdoor adventures, so the switch from running a cafe to spending every day on a skifield promoting ski products was pretty ideal."The mountain has always been a big part of my life. And now Cardrona skifield is my office every day.”Moving to Wanaka gave Janelle and Pierre the chance to slow down and reconnect with their values, they say."It’s a completely different rhythm here,” Janelle said.PHOTO: Wanaka App

Wattie Thompson pictured in a newspaper during his cross-country solo walk.LAURA WILLIAMSONEvery Sunday in the Wanaka App, we run a profile of an interesting local, and we are always struck that, despite living somewhere with a small population, we never run out of people to write about. Turns out this is not a new thing - the region’s past is full of fascinating characters too, like Wattie Thompson. When we heard his story, we knew we had to share it.Wattie Thompson spent his last days quietly in Luggate, a much-loved member of the community known for his joviality and skill with a pool cue. After he died, his photo hung on a wall in the Luggate Hotel for years.Many of the pub patrons who glanced up from their pints to look at it would have had little idea that not only was the man in the photograph the last alluvial gold miner in the region, he played a part in one of New Zealand’s greatest tragedies.Born in England in 1909, Wattie immigrated to New Zealand as a baby with his parents, who settled at Huntly. He moved as a young man to the Ardgour Valley, near Tarras, and spent time working both there and up the Lindis until, at the age of 30, he volunteered to serve in the New Zealand Army at the start of World War II. He was captured in North Africa spent three years as a POW in Italy - wartime experiences that some say left him a committed pacifist for the rest of his life.Upon his return to Central Otago, he turned to gold prospecting almost full-time. In the Lindis Valley, he worked a claim at Camp Creek, located in the area off of SH8 now designated as Nine Mile Historic Reserve; his old two-room concrete hut is still there, near the remains of the Lindis Pass Hotel and a huge creekside pile of tailings, testament to the work done by Wattie, and the miners who came before him.He later prospected at Bendigo Gully, near Tarras, where he worked away sieving gravel and hunting for flecks of gold; he became well-known both for his hermetic lifestyle and for being the the Bendigo Goldfields’ last miner. As interest in Wattie grew, curious visitors started to stop in, and were sometimes handed a pan and a pile of gravel so they could have a go themselves.Wattie "retired” to Luggate in the late seventies, though he didn’t really stop work, continuing to look for, and find, gold in Luggate Creek.His first brush with notoriety, though, came not due to his mining endeavours, but to his religious beliefs. At the age of 56, in December 1964, Wattie set off on foot on a journey from Bluff to Cape Reinga wearing a sandwich board calling on New Zealanders to "repent” and to "remember the saboth [sic]”. He said at the time he had had a life-changing vision while alone in his hut, one which left him both deeply religious and sceptical of what he saw as the commercialisation of the mainstream churches.His trek got a bit of media attention, attracting coverage in the ‘New Zealand Truth’ tabloid newspaper; later, once he’d returned to prospecting, a writer from ‘New Zealand Woman’s Weekly’ even visited him to do a profile. She described "a slight figure with a lined, brown face, bright blue eyes … snowy hair, a white growth on the chin, body tanned through holes in his short, patched trousers, bare feet”, and praised his "simple, contented life”.His second foray into the public eye was more tragic.A humble man who needed little, Wattie owned few material possessions. People who met him commented on how he seemed happy with nothing more than his mining kit, his Bible, a radio, a tractor or two (one ended up upside down in Luggate Creek), and a jar filled with gold flakes. The jar has become a bit legendary - local rumour suggests Wattie buried it, but despite extensive searching, it has never been found.Wattie, however, was fascinated - possibly because he was so interested in geology - by Antarctica, and when he was 70-years-old, he took some of what he had amassed from his veteran’s benefit and the proceeds of gold mining and bought an uncharacteristically extravagant ticket for an 11-hour Antarctic flightseeing trip, scheduled for November 1978.He went on the flight, but, thanks to low cloud, saw nothing of the frozen continent he had dreamed of viewing; so he decided to go back.Wattie boarded Air New Zealand flight TE901 for a second time on November 28, 1979. He lost his life, along with the other 256 people on board, when the flight crashed into Mount Erebus.A memorial service was held in Luggate and Wattie was laid to rest under a quartz rock headstone at the Tarras cemetery, where it remains today, a reminder that extraordinary people are everywhere, even in the smallest of places.The Luggate Community Association is currently undertaking a project to write and publish a comprehensive history of the Luggate township and its community. To help cover costs, the LCA is seeking local businesses to come on board as sponsors. If you’d like to help make this community project happen, contact laura@wanakaapp.nz.PHOTOS: Supplied

Jason Watkins outside The Cube headquarters at the Cell, on Helwick Street.CAROLINE HARKERWhen Jason Watkins was interviewed for the position of Business Development Manager at the Cube, not one of the interviewers recognised him, although he had been living and working in Wanaka for five years.He must have impressed them because they gave him the job, and one of the first things he started working on was doing something about the isolation of like-minded people in the local business community.The Cube (Centre of Unique Business Evolution) was set up to maintain the momentum generated by the Wanaka Gigatown campaign. Jason’s job is to help develop opportunities for existing local businesses, attract new businesses to the area and help the local economy grow.Initiatives include a business mentors scheme and presentations, seminars and workshops for anyone who is interested. Both have done a lot to bring self-employed small business owners together, Jason said. He estimates the population of Wanaka is now around 11,000, and with 2,200 GST registered businesses in town, there’s a very high proportion of self-employed people here.When he started the Cube’s Business Mentors Initiative in April, more than 50 people applied for mentoring in the first two weeks."We had to pull our advertising. The demand was huge.” Jason has a pool of 26 mentors available and is always looking for more. They are all volunteers and between them have a huge range of experience.Some people are completely new to business when they apply for a mentor, others are quite experienced. For example, a businesswoman who produces skincare products which she sells around the country wanted to move into the international market. Jason has teamed her up with a mentor who has experience in marketing around the world. He says the breadth and depth of experience and talent in Wanaka is extraordinary."If the Cube model wouldn’t work in Wanaka it wouldn’t work anywhere,” he said. "The town is full of people who excel in all sorts of areas - from intellectual and business acumen to sporting talent.”Jason himself has had a broad and varied career. He works half-time at the Cube and the rest of the time he runs own sports management consultancy business which takes him all over the country. He has also worked in tourism, education, and science and technology.Jason and his wife Irenie decided to move to Wanaka from Christchurch about a year after the earthquakes. "The aftershocks seemed to go on and on and caused us so much stress and anxiety. Luckily I could be flexible with my work and we moved here in 2011.”They and their three children, aged two, seven and 11, are loving living in Wanaka and Jason has no regrets about the move. He’s been his own boss for most of his working life, and the combination of running the Cube and his own consultancy business suits him well.The Cube provides him with lots of contact with local people, and the challenge of providing ongoing business support and advocacy is keeping him busy.Jason is half-way through running an entrepreneur speakers series (with more sessions coming up in October and November) and is developing a Wanaka investment network. He’s also working with Peter Harris, QLDC’s newly appointed economic development manager.An important goal is to help Wanaka develop a diverse and resilient economy, extending far beyond tourism, hospitality and farming."Wanaka’s an exciting place to be,” Jason said.PHOTO: Caroline Harker

Raymond Tiddy will shave off his beard next month to raise money for his uncle Bruce, who is recovering from a life-changing cancer surgery.MADDY HARKERWanaka man Raymond Tiddy plans to shave off his impressive beard - which has been growing for two years - at the conclusion of a fundraising campaign for his uncle Bruce, who is recovering from major cancer surgery.Raymond has started a GoFundMe page to raise money for his uncle."It’s the least I can do to help him out,” Raymond said. "Growing up I had a few uncles but he was the one that was really special to me.”"He is one of those model citizens that has never smoked, lived an active lifestyle, worked to help people, and he’s been hit pretty hard with some really bad luck.”Raymond said his uncle had dedicated his life to working with some of the most vulnerable and marginalised people in society. He is well known and respected for his development of alcohol and drug and mental health programmes in prisons and communities across New Zealand, Australia and Indonesia.Bruce has had several operations since 2013 to treat aggressive and invasive skin cancer. The operations involved removal of areas of bone and tissue and have required follow-up chemotherapy and radiation. Remarkably, all surgeries were successful and after each period of recovery he was able to return to his work and live a very full life.Earlier this year however, Bruce was diagnosed with further tumors at the base of his tongue and glands on the right side of his neck. Bruce had to have surgery which involved total removal of his tongue, voice box and the glands in his neck. He now breathes from a stoma in his neck and takes food from a feed tube.Any funds raised by Raymond would go towards Bruce’s recovery and to help him return to leading a full and active life. Because he has previously had radiation therapy, his recovery will be slow and he will have to adjust to a new way of life.Even without the use of his voice, Bruce continues his work in mental health and addiction. He is enormously positive, Raymond said, and is determined to make the most of his situation.This is the second time Raymond has shaved his beard for charity. Two and a half years ago he raised $2,500 for international aid organisation Doctors Without Borders.PHOTO: Supplied

Michelle StewartMADDY HARKERMichelle Stewart’s pop-up shop, The Woven, is the kind of place you want to curl up and spend the whole day in. It’s hidden down an alleyway behind The Cell on Helwick Street, and is full of woollen blankets, ponchos, balls of wool and knitting needles. It’s cosy and homely, and an ode to the principles of Michelle’s business.Michelle hasn’t opted for the popular, muted look for her store or the goods she knits. Instead, she’s inspired by the colours she sees in nature."I try to be led by my landscape,” she said.One of her most popular colours, rain, is inspired by the colour of the sky over Lake Wanaka during a storm."If you take a photo and really look at the colours you see things you aren’t expecting to see.”It’s a worthwhile challenge for the company tasked with bringing the colours she sees to life."I send in landscape photos, mood boards and bits of fabric,” Michelle said. "It was a real case of chafing against the mill.”Michelle has also broken traditional rules with the wool she produces."What I make is bigger and easier to knit with, and doesn’t require a particular type of needle. I want knitting to be accessible.”Michelle has had a varied career before The Woven. She ran a packaging and production business in Auckland, and had a lot of jobs that involved spreadsheets and numbers."I didn’t consider myself a creative person at all,” she said.It was a couple of years after Michelle and her husband and young baby packed up their life in Auckland, quitting their jobs and selling their home, and moved to Wanaka, that Michelle realised her love of knitting was something she could make a career of."I started the business because I wanted to have a sustainable life in Wanaka. I thought to myself, ‘How do I create a business that helps other people make a living too?’”Starting with just $500, it was an ambitious task. But Michelle found that her ideas developed naturally, and her online store gained popularity quickly."I realised I just wanted to knit things that were cooler than what I could get my hands on in other places. I wanted fresh colours and nice products. It rolled into me wanting to create an experience.”Wanaka features heavily in her branding now. With each product she sends to a customer, Michelle sends a little note that explains how the colour was thought up."I tell the Wanaka story in everything I do,” Michelle said.She uses local women as models, and employs local photographer Nadine Cagney to make the images she produces special."I think what makes me successful is that really relatable imagery. I like to use ‘real’ women.”The designers she uses to help create her branding are also from Wanaka."Local business is at the heart of what I do. Everything I possibly can, I do locally. The only part of my business that isn’t made in Wanaka is the wool.”Knitting has been a lifelong love for Michelle, who learnt from her Nana when she was about eight-years-old."It was always a really strong connector for me and her.”She was ridiculed for knitting earlier in her life. "People would roll their eyes at me, say ‘Don’t bring your knitting with you again, please’, that kind of thing.”However, knitting has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years."It’s a really magical time. Young people are getting really into knitting now too.”Michelle is focused on making knitting fun and easy. She doesn’t want people to be intimidated by it, and isn’t afraid to do things differently herself. She often knits without a pattern, and tries to encourage other people, especially women, to have a go."A part of the reason for having my business is definitely to inspire people to knit. I thought to myself, ‘What do knitters need?’ And ‘What can I do that will make it easier?’”"What they definitely don’t need is complicated patterns and rules.”Michelle started Knit Club Wanaka, which is held at Alchemy every Thursday at 5.30pm. Knitters at all levels are invited to come along and share the experience of knitting. Some weeks 50 to 55 people come along."Knitting is a great way to sit down and relax while still creating something,” Michelle said. "There have been studies that have shown that there is a rhythmic cadence to knitting that can calm anxiety.”"With both the knit club and my business I try to inspire, motivate and build people up.”PHOTO: Wanaka App

All aboard! Perks of the competition included sightseeing in Amsterdam on the Heineken boat. MADDY HARKER If you want a well-poured pint, Trout Bar owner Ricky Barbara is your man.Ricky placed second at the Heineken Global Bartender final in Amsterdam earlier this week, competing against 18 of the world’s best bartenders for the title of Heineken Bartender of 2017.Ricky won a free trip to Amsterdam to compete in the finals after topping the regional and then national finals earlier this year.How hard can it be to pour a pint, you may wonder?A Trout staff member explained the steps to pouring the perfect Heineken: Rinse the glass in the beer grates, pour at a 45 degree angle, rinse the top off the foam at the same angle, make sure the bottom of the foam sits on the shoulder of the stars (on the Heineken-branded glass), and serve on a coaster with the Heineken label facing the customer.Other factors come into play at a competition level, the employee said, and you could be marked down for things like having your beer nozzle touch the glass.Heineken employs mystery shoppers to ensure their brews are poured perfectly. It was Ricky’s pour for a mystery shopper that put him into the regional competition that eventually led him to Amsterdam.The competition was held at the Amsterdam’s Heineken factory, and competitors were also treated to city tours and sightseeing.Ricky thanked his staff on Facebook for "holding the fort” at Trout Bar while he enjoyed the perks of his free trip.PHOTO: Supplied

Paul Martin performs at the Poetry Slam NZ Southern Lakes regional finals.LAURA WILLIAMSONWhen it comes to poetry, Paul Martin has some advice: "If you’re ever stuck writing poetry, listen to poetry.”Good point, Paul, and he should know. The 23-year-old recently won the Poetry Slam NZ Southern Lakes regional finals, and will be travelling to Hamilton in November to represent our district at the poetry slam national finals.Slam is a competitive poetry event, at which poets perform spoken works and are judged by audience members in knock-out rounds. It was started by construction worker and poet Marc Smith in 1986 at a reading series in a Chicago jazz club, and is now contested all over the world.A recent arrival in our region (he is currently living in Luggate), Paul grew up in Landing, New Jersey and moved to New York to study Psychology and Italian at Fordham University. The language came from his mother, who is Italian."We had family members who would visit; I spent a lot time time on Google translate with my cousins. I thought, let’s make this easier, so I took Italian in high school and university, and became fluent. You get to know people so much more without the language barrier.”Before coming to New Zealand this winter, Paul was based in Brooklyn, where he was a full-time volunteer with Boys Hope Girls Hope of New York, a non-profit organisation that helps low-income students with housing and tuition; he worked with the kids in the evening and as a barista during the day to supplement his income.He said working with youth was a "tremendous” experience, but the double shifts were definitely wearing him down. When the chance came to visit the Southern Hemisphere for three weeks this year, he decided to take it. And then he decided to stay for a while.Paul’s father, Larry, lost his sight as an adult due to retinitis pigmentosa, and six years ago he took up visually-impaired ski racing. He’d trained alongside some of Wanaka’s well-known para-athletes in Colorado, including Paralympians Adam Hall and Corey Peters, and he decided to come to Wanaka to train - Paul, a former junior ski racer, came along as his guide.Paul had only been here a week when he emailed his boss at the cafe back in Brooklyn to tell him he wasn’t coming back, at least not for while."It was the lifestyle. I’m much happier and healthier here than I was living at home. I wake up and I drive down the street, and I can look at the mountains. I looked at the Brooklyn Bridge every day and it got old on day three – the mountains will never get old,” he said."One of my favorite things to do here, is to go to a place we found on Lake Wanaka and just go and sit. You’d never do that in New York. Everyone would be like, ‘why are you just sitting?’”As for the poetry, it’s all connected. "Something I don’t share face to face much is my struggle with mental health, but I do in my poetry,” Paul said. He was diagnosed with depression and anxiety in 2015, though he says now he can retrospectively see the signs emerging two or three years before that. And while our region’s beauty has been a balm, so have words.He said he wrote his first poem in sixth grade ("to my girlfriend”), but that he really started writing in his first year at university. He got a journal and initially wrote only in Italian, to keep the language up."After that one was full I got another one, which got filled with a lot of dark thoughts,” he said. After his diagnosis he said he got a lot of inspiration from the depression and anxiety he was facing; one of the last pages of that second diary is where he put down his first spoken word poem.He wrote the poem in September of 2015 and performed it in November at an Open Slam event. He won, and got to perform with the Open Slam group on campus at one of their shows. "Then I auditioned for the group and I made it,” he said.Paul said he was inspired early on by the hip hop artist, author and poet George Watsky (he performs as Watsky). "He was the only poet I knew, so tried to write to sound like him. But when I became part of the Open Slam group, I started observing all these people with different styles – I was just a sponge.”His works delves often into issues around mental health, but there are moments of lighter observation too, such as in his work ‘Starbucks 9th St and 3rd Ave’:I can’t even decipher the menu withcafe-mocha frappe smoothies andcaramel iced pumpkin lattes,I’m forced to use Google to translateandwhere did all the beauty go?He said competing in, and winning, the Southern Lakes slam event made his decision to stay feel even more right: "Everything just fell into place.”As for the poems, it’s about more than just the words."Writing was a selfish thing, because I benefitted from it and I benefit from getting up there and speaking, but if there’s one person in the room who connects … I’m starting to realise I can help people with my poetry,” he said."Something that helps me but can also help other people – that is perfect.”PHOTO: Wanaka App

Susan MansonLAURA WILLIAMSONLiving a creative life, Susan Manson said, "is very much cutting the coat to match the cloth. Sometimes you have enough to have fun, sometimes you don’t.”That Susan used a cloth metaphor to describe the financial vagaries of making ends meet working in the arts is appropriate – her current business, Fully Woolly, revolves primarily around creating creatures from used woollen blankets, mostly the tartan ones we all remember from grandparents’ houses and childhood baches.Her most successful products are woollen mounted deer heads, pieces that are, frankly, adorable, just the right mix of realist and whimsical, the sort of art anyone can enjoy.Susan is one of those rare Wanaka locals who really is a local. Her father’s family moved to the area in the thirties. "They were involved in setting up a lot of things,” Susan said, including the library, fire brigade, Guides and a playcentre. Her grandfather built the first swimming pool in town: an outdoor affair, it was at the Dinosaur Park.Susan was born in Cromwell, in what is now the Ripponburn retirement home, which used to be the Cromwell Maternity Hospital. She attended Wanaka District High School, which changed over to Wanaka Area School she was in about third form, a process she called "a bit of a shambles”."They couldn’t get enough teachers, so the principal taught us for a year. He had to supervise through the intercom – we learned to get into trouble quietly.”At the time, there were only three options available at the school: French, typing or technical drawing (graphics). She wanted to do graphics, but was told she couldn’t, because she was a girl. Then she was told she couldn’t do typing, because she was too smart – so French it was, something she laughs about now. "I showed them, I got 30 percent.”Susan said she was always interested in the arts, especially fibre, which in her family "runs in our veins”. Her great grandfather was a Paisley weaver (from Paisley, Scotland, the weavers were famous for their technical and artistic skill) and she has aunts who do embroidery and doll-making. She also gives credit to her high school art teacher, Truda Landreth, who she called an "awesome, motivating teacher.”Susan started out making a lot of different things before deciding she wanted to stick to wool – "I want to be fully woolly” she told her mum, which is where the name of her company comes from.At first, it was all spinning and knitting, Susan explained. She even won a couple of national awards from Creative Fibre (formerly the New Zealand Spinning, Weaving and Woolcrafts Society) for knitwear design.She’s been trading as Fully Woolly for about 15 years, but it was three years ago, when she hit on the idea of the deer, that the business really started to take off – she mostly makes the deer now, plus a few toys, including monkeys, unicorns, bunnies and kiwis.She uses re-purposed blankets and knits for her work, sourced from op shops, TradeMe, friends and donations – a nook in the hallway at her home is piled high with them. "The fabrics have a history and a memory already; it gives them a second life,” she said, adding that people often say they remember a certain pattern from the family caravan, or that they got the same blanket as a wedding present. Susan said the older blankets are also softened down and felted up, so they have a nicer feel than a new fabric might.Susan sells her work online (click on MORE below), at the markets in Queenstown and Wanaka, in 11 shops and galleries from Wellington south (including on Stewart Island), as well as in Wanaka at Ritual and the Coffee Shack.  Each deer has a "blanket name”: an orange tartan one is called Pumpkin Spice, then there’s Envy ("because he’s green with …”), Bluegreen (a blue and green version), Porange (he’s pink and orange), not to mention First Class, who was made from an Air New Zealand first class blanket.Online, she sells her creatures all over the world, from Mexico to England. Once, a French guy based in Greece bought an owl for his girlfriend. Unfortunately, the couple broke up after the owl had left New Zealand. The broken-hearted Frenchman wanted to know if his ex-beloved had received the present, so Susan sent her a postcard, signed by the owl, asking if she had received it, but the woman never replied.About once a month, Susan will also give away a deer for a good cause – recent donations to fundraisers have included Santa’s Grotto in Wanaka and the Invercargill Oncology Nurses fundraiser.As for the growth of her business, "it’s kind of happened to me, not by me,” Susan said, calling it an organic process that involved a bit of blind luck, and hitting on the idea of the deer at the right time.When she started, she said, she bought the D-rings for hanging the deer ten at a time. Now she orders them in batches of 400.The deer are obviously a great idea, but Susan is humble about her success, crediting local support in part for helping her get to where she is, including from her friend Julia Larkin, who has helped her with graphic design, Julia’s husband, who did Susan’s first pro photographs, and a "really supportive community” at the markets – she sold her first deer to a fellow stallholder.Find Susan in Wanaka at the Wanaka Sunday Craft Market, which runs every Sunday from October through April at Market Corner in Pembroke Park.PHOTO: Wanaka App

Billy Barton and a "bundle of fun”.SUE WARDSWelshman Steve ‘Billy’ Barton’s decision to escape the rat race in the UK led to him joining a different rat race entirely, as a predator control specialist in Wanaka - the lead man in predator control team Billy and the Bunny Catchers.But trying to get a handle on all Billy’s activities is almost as hard as getting a handful of his three ferrets."I’ve got my finger in a lot of pies,” Billy said. "This is what my life’s like.”His main role is trapping, shooting, and using dogs and ferrets, working as Phoenix SPB Ltd (tagline Billy and the Bunny Catchers). In this role he’s responsible for around 500 local predator traps from Roys Peninsula to Queensberry, working for DOC and a range of private clients to control rabbits, hares, stoats and feral cats."In its own way it’s conservation,” he said. "You get rid of the rabbits and predators and the wildlife thrives.”Billy is helped by his ferrets (Goldenballs and two unnamed females) and a team of dogs. It took Billy and partner Mary Hunt about ten minutes to work out how many dogs they collectively own. After trying unsuccessfully to add them up by breed and age, Mary finally takes paper and pen and comes up with 16 dogs. The dogs are run in a team of up to nine, and having a few extra means the dogs don't get tired too often. "It's a hard life with all the hunting they do, covering up to 30kms some days,” Billy said.Another of Billy’s businesses is Phoenix Breeding Kennels. He breeds and sells White Shepherds and is working on a line of Welsh Springer Spaniel hunting dogs, aiming to return the breed to their original hunting roots.He’s also the only person in New Zealand working with White German Shepherds for hunting: he said the dogs are biddable, with a good nose.Billy’s also interested in genetic testing of different breeds, and has strong feelings about the damage done to various breeds from Kennel Clubs breeding for ‘desirable’ features.Billy and Mary’s pack includes a Whippet, Labradoodle, Spaniels, a rescued Border Terrier, white German Shepherds and four striking German Shepherd Greyhound crosses (which Billy calls "germ-hounds”) - including 13-year-old Zappa, which he brought to New Zealand from the UK when he emigrated in 2008."I came to New Zealand as a welder with an intention to get into pest control because I liked it,” Billy said. Since then he’s worked as an engineer in Dunedin, spent 12 months eradicating rabbits on Macquarie Island in 2013, and honed his trapping skills in a variety of settings. Billy started part time pest control in Wanaka three years ago, and moved here permanently last June. (He came to housesit for Mary and never left, she said.)Billy was well-known in UK hunting circles for training dogs for rabbiting. He started ferreting 30 years ago: his first ferret, Fred, was trained to a whistle. Now Billy catches wild kit (young ferrets) and trains them. (The ferrets have to be kept under MPI regulations.)He describes them as "little bundles of fun”. Training them not to bite is a priority. So far he’s been bitten "probably about 100 times”, mostly by wild ferrets when trapping new ones to be tamed and trained.With a transmitter on each ferret’s collar he can identify them 16 feet away. Once the ferrets have done their job, usually down rabbit holes, they’ll often head back to their box, Billy said. "They know where their food comes from.”Billy’s knowledge of ferrets led to "another idea”. He had tried to import mink gland oil from America but couldn’t, so decided to try using ferret gland oil, or "stink juice”, to see if it would attract stoats and ferrets into traps. He sent a load of dead ferrets to his ex-partner at the University of Otago; she removed the stink glands and put them in oil.Billy tried the oil and found it worked - as does ferret bedding - to attract predators. Wanaka Otago Regional Councillor Ella Lawton helped him discover another use for the stuff. "She had a problem with rabbits under her deck and I said, ‘do you fancy trying something?’” The rabbits disappeared once the "stink juice” was installed.Now Billy’s supplying the oil and bedding to a variety of groups, including Orokonui Ecosanctuary, DOC and the Wellington Regional Council."I do a bit of an exchange. They send me a bottle of whiskey every now and then. I’ll never be rich,” he said.After meeting Billy it’s not surprising to learn his favourite musician is the innovative Frank Zappa. (Most of his dogs’ names pay homage to Zappa’s music.) Billy seems to share Zappa’s eclectic, experimental approach to life. He segues from telling the Wanaka App about "bagging ferret crap and sending it off”, to describing plans for his latest business, clinical hypnotherapy, in which he has a diploma."I was an anxiety sufferer,” he said. Anxiety, depression and insomnia were the side-effects of medication he took years ago. He suffered for about five years before finding hypnotherapy."I always had a curiosity about it,” he said. "I like the therapy because it’s helping people.”Meanwhile Billy’s helping people in other ways. Conservation Week starts tomorrow (Monday October 16), and this year’s theme is ‘Love your backyard’. DOC Wanaka has been collaborating with local conservationist Kris Vollebregt to start up a backyard trapping programme targeting rats, stoats and ferrets in urban Wanaka. Billy has also contributed his expertise to the scheme, and is happy to advise people on their own backyard trapping."Wanaka is our backyard,” Billy said. "Backyard trapping is as simple as putting a trap in your backyard - just watch your fingers.” (And be careful where you put the traps: Billy has a wealth of knowledge on that, and also suggests people check out http://predatorfreenz.org/the-predators/ for information.)"You’re never far from a rat,” Billy said. "You’d be surprised at the amount of stoats and ferrets out there. The idea is to enhance the wildlife in your back garden by getting rid of the predators.”If you need some help with that, who’re you going to call? A Frank Zappa-loving, Billy Connolly look-a-like, ferreting hypnotherapist. There’s only one in Wanaka: Billy Barton.PHOTO: Wanaka App

4EVER team members Harrison Brown and Paul Wright.LAURA WILLIAMSONThree of the teams racing in today’s Bike Wanaka 10-hour Dean’s Bank race are part of an innovative programme with local origins that is helping young mountain bikers compete at the international level.There used to be two choices for mountain bikers hoping to race World Cups and crack a pro contract: be selected by Cycling NZ, the sport’s national body, or go it alone, as a "privateer”.In mountain biking, a "privateer” is a self-supported athlete who looks after herself or himself on the competition circuit, which as well as coming up with the money to compete, includes managing travel logistics, finding a place to sleep every night, and keeping bikes race-ready.4EVER Racing NZ aims to change this. Launched late last year by local cycling enthusiast Scott Wright, 4EVER is a non-profit race team supported by 4EVER (4E) Bikes from the Czech Republic; the aim is to grow the numbers of Kiwi riders racing at World Cups and World Championships by making it easier for them to get into the game.The team’s current roster includes six-time Motatapu mountain bike race winner and Commonwealth Games cyclist Kate Fluker, former Mount Aspiring College student Paul Wright, as well as local teens Ty Sarginson, Harrison Brown and Campbell Wright.Team manager Melissa Newell, who is based in Wanaka and used to teach Physical Education at MAC, said the idea behind the team is to support athletes with "no national body between sponsors and athletes.”One issue with the mainstream system, which in New Zealand is managed by Cycling NZ, is that a significant portion of funding can get eaten up by administration costs. "Our idea is to make sure the athletes are getting the money,” she said. 4EVER pays for the athletes’ training, travel and the majority of their gear, the only cost for the cyclists themselves is their bikes, which 4EVER provides at a heavily-discounted rate.Melissa said the team offers a new alternative, allowing mountain bikers to work towards going pro without having to either be a part of Cycling NZ’s national performance programme, or to go it alone."We make sure the athletes are eating good food and are not limited by driving in van for 10 hours, then having to sleep in a van, then getting up and competing against the best in the world. It’s just the basics really,” she said. Melissa explained that under current system, athletes who can’t afford to travel to compete internationally and gain the UCI points necessary to win Cycling NZ selection tend to get left behind. "Our idea is to take calculated risks on athletes based on their true potential,” not, she said, based only on race points.The team came about when Scott Wright, who lives in Hawea Flat, was in Europe supporting his son Paul who was competing as an under-19 racer. He ended up meeting a woofer from the Czech Republic who connected him with staff at the 4EVER factory. "Boom, we were launched,” Melissa said.Another difference in 4EVER’s approach is a "complete open door policy” when it comes to finances. At any time, any of the sponsors and athletes have access to the financial records of the team - they can see where money is being spent and why. Currently, the team’s only waged employee is Melissa; the rest goes back to the athletes.This year, 4EVER sent three mountain bikers to compete on the World Cup cross country circuit in Europe, Paul Wright, Rotorua’s Taylor Johnston and Charlotte Rayner from Auckland, and the signing of Kate Fluker, who is gunning for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, is a sign the model is working.As well as racing at Dean’s Bank, the 4EVER cyclists are at a team camp this weekend, with 15 athletes coming to Wanaka from around the country to attend. Mountain Bike New Zealand president Gil Peters spoke to the team, as well as former junior downhill world champion Scarlett Hagen, and riders have been doing gym work at Latitude 44 Fitness, pump track training at Lismore Bike Park, as well as racing today."Trying to create something that actually works for the athlete is paramount,” Melissa said. "It’s about not just benefiting someone else's model.”PHOTO: Supplied

Bex SarginsonBex Sarginson is all heart. That’s what stands out when you meet her, whether or not you know she runs Food for Love and spends more hours a week than she can count coordinating the delivery of home-cooked meals to people in need all around the Upper Clutha.That’s on top of being a wife and mother to husband Karsten Ludwig (a local gasfitter and plumber) and their daughters Bella, 13, and Zoe, 8. And working five days a week as a cleaner.Bex has been the coordinator of Food for Love since July 2016. She and her team provide meals and baking to families or individuals who need a little help. Food for Love was the brainchild of Wanaka’s Louise Carney who started it in April 2016. Bex joined her soon afterwards."I heard about that little boy from Auckland with a brain tumour who was coming down here for a holiday with his family,” Bex said. "I thought, the least we can do is fill the fridge. So I joined Food for Love.”Fifteen months on Food for Love has 70 volunteer cooks who provide a home cooked meal about once a month and 30 more who do baking."If they can, I like my cooks to take the meal they make to the family it’s for. When meals are delivered for the first time there’s often lots of tears,” Bex said. "And I often get messages from my cooks saying it’s the best thing they have ever done.”Of all the people cooking for Food for Love, only one has pulled out. But as more people are referred to help, Bex could do with more help, especially with pick ups and deliveries."All the running around is a bit of a killer.” She would also like to form a committee, to share the load of organisation.Food for Love was runner-up in the Health and Wellbeing section of the Trustpower Queenstown Lakes District Community awards earlier this week, Bex was thrilled."I cried and cried. I was so happy for everyone who helps Food for Love. I want to use the prize money [$250] to have a party for everyone.”Food for Love was runner-up to Baskets of Blessings, a similar organisation based in Queenstown which has been operating for four years.In the bus on the way back to Wanaka after the awards ceremony everyone was trying to think of ways to help Food for Love, Bex said. One result was Gina Dempster of Link Upper Clutha has offered to help Bex find some funding for delivery expenses (namely petrol).Whatever happens, Bex has no regrets about joining Food for Love and becoming the coordinator."It’s incredible to be able to help. There are so many people out there without support who could do with a hand.”People receiving meals from them for all sorts of reasons, but the main ones include sickness, surgery and childbirth. Others need help after a separation or sudden unexpected financial hardship."Just having someone turn up who cares, when you are just home from hospital, or in some kind of trouble, is amazing,” Bex said. "There are a lot of people here with no family around to support them.”People are referred to Food for Love by phone or through the group’s facebook page. No explanations are required.  "All we want to know is how many people we are cooking for and if they have any food intolerances,” Bex said. Some people just get one meal, but if there is a need for ongoing support Food for Love will try to provide it.She has approached some local food businesses for support, and some have come forward, so some food is provided for free, which is always a great help, Bex said. Individuals who have received meals often give something back when they can too. Individuals also often supply fruit and vegetables from their gardens, or other treats. Bex has access to a chest freezer so is able to store food which can be frozen."People are so kind and generous and I’ve met so many amazing people. That’s the best thing about doing this. The people I’ve met.”To volunteer, nominate or learn more, visit the Food for Love Facebook page.PHOTO: Caroline Harker

Marty Cornish. PHOTO: Wanaka AppSUE WARDSA life in shearing sheds has left Marty Cornish with a gravelly voice, a colourful turn of phrase, a stock of tall tales, and a deep cough, but the semi-retired Lake Hawea shearer has no regrets about his choice of career.Marty loves the business, and despite being retired still has 300 sheep and works the local lifestyle blocks with his mate Ken McLeod.Marty can pick up a merino jumper and tell you straight off how many microns the fibre is. He has a passion for fine wool. "It's the combination of the softness and of the fibre. You get a merino and you're clipping that beautiful white wool off the sheep and it opens up like a flower. It's the best natural fibre in the world.”Marty grew up in Glenorchy to farming parents. (He was in Glenorchy last weekend in time to have a last look at his grandparents’ house in the Rees Valley before it was demolished.) After his father died in a logging accident when Marty was five, the family moved to Dunedin.Marty said he’s not a town person. "As soon as I did three years high school I was gone. I haven’t been back.”He joined the three year farm cadet scheme in 1967 with a $200 scholarship from the Otago Savings Bank. The course, which included a year at Telford, was his introduction to shearing, and after a year of farm work in Central Otago, he joined a shearing gang, starting with rousing and pressing."I loved it. I shore 300 before I was 21. I loved the lifestyle, constantly being on the move and meeting people.”It wasn’t unusual for the shearers to work 50 days in a row. "You just kept on going until it rained. That’s why it’s called ‘party drops’.”Marty had a strict but respected boss, Freddy Peyton. When he turned 21 (on a Saturday), his boss said: "If you’re not here in the morning you won’t have a job.”"I was too scared not to turn up!”Back in the 70s shearers had a bad rap, Marty said, but he didn’t let the lifestyle affect his goals: "I had targets: X amount of sheep and X amount of dollars in the bank. We respected our jobs. The money was good. $1.10 an hour rousing or pressing - I thought I was made.” He bought a brand new Mini after his first year of shearing, for $2367.By the age of 29 Marty had a wife, three children and a small farm (135 acres at Knapdale). "I had to shear harder then.” Australia beckoned.He has some cracking stories to tell about his experiences within the ‘wide comb dispute’ which tore the Australian shearing industry apart in the early 1980s. Australian shearers used narrower combs than their Kiwi counterparts, meaning shearing took longer (keeping prices up). Their stronger unions also stopped them working weekends. When Marty went to Australia in 1975 it was "man’s last frontier”.He considered Aussie shearers were holding farmers to ransom. "They were saying the wide gear would blow your wrist up and things like that - pathetic talk.”He went back to Australia in 1985, the year wide combs became legal. There was still a lot of tension around, and the Aussie shearers didn’t like Kiwi shearers, he said.He recalls shearing for a station in New South Wales. "I said to the other Kiwi shearers, do a good job boys and just take it easy.” At the end of a two-hour run, he counted out the sheep with Bruce, the station owner. With the introduction of the wide tooth comb, Marty told Bruce he should be pleasantly surprised with the numbers of sheep shorn in the timeframe and the quality of the job."There was tension and nervousness with all the propaganda but Bruce's fears were unfounded and he said, ‘You've got a free hand - away you go boys’. The Kiwi boys were nearly doubling shearing numbers by using the wide tooth comb. It took eight days what had taken five weeks the previous year, owing to Australians stopping when it looked like a rain cloud, or if a woman came into the shed, including the farmer's wife. We saved Bruce and his good lady $1.08 cents a sheep. That was a lot of money then.”He recalls another occasion when he was the only Kiwi in a gang, using a pulled comb (standard New Zealand issue). "They looked at the tally book, looked at my gear, and they stormed down the board. ‘Did you bend this comb Kiwi?’ I said no, you can buy them like that at home.”Marty apologised and put his comb away. But when he dragged out the next sheep he saw his fleeces still on the board, looked over and saw the shearers and rousies leaning on the board watching him. "I was really backed into the corner. I thought, ‘this is just lovely’.” He knew the Aussie boys wouldn’t have seen the impressive Kiwi trick of winding up their handpiece and letting it swing in a big arc before catching it. "I was hoping I wouldn’t make a fool of myself. But I caught it. Then I walked up to this little stirring Victorian guy with my handpiece in my hand and said, ‘If this is shearing Australian style you can stick it.’”It was a victory. "None of them could look at me. I was out of there like the bald man.”Marty went to England for the first time in 1990. Timeframes weren’t important to the English farmers, he said. "It was like that scene in Easy Rider where they throw their watches away.” The first day he went to three jobs in order to shear 70 sheep. He enjoyed the experience but didn’t go back for 16 years.Marty first visited the USA in 1989. He spent the best part of 10 years touring the Northwest, three months at a time - Oregon, Idaho, Northern California, Nevada, Utah."For every sheep we shore we’d drive a mile,” he said. The temperatures were also a shock. "I remember one winter we were shearing sheep with ice dags half the size of your fist on their bellies, it was so cold.”He loves the country, and went back last year for his former contractor’s 80th, and again this year to Alaska. "It really is the last frontier.”Kiwi shearers have always been in demand overseas, Marty said. "They’re the best in the world.” It comes from the days when New Zealand was shearing more than 100 million sheep a year: "You had to go fast.”In his 19 years of shearing overseas Marty has only spent four nights in a city (three in London and one in Los Angeles) - but he has shorn on five different military bombing ranges in the USA, in the desert country.He gave up full-time professional shearing in 1994, but was still shearing 10,000 sheep a year, including 5000 on his leased property near Bendigo Station, where he and his wife channelled their energy into fine wool. In 1997 they broke the New Zealand fine wool record with a 14.2 micron fleece.Marty in 2001. PHOTO: SuppliedAs an ex-shearer turned fine wool breeder he was an oddity. Marty remembers going to a party with sheep farmers: the snide comments made to him, like "starvation’s finest fluke”, still rankle. In 1999, when wool prices went crazy, Marty produced a bale of 13.9 micron. "We got $362 a kilo for that one. So much for the fluke.”It’s all in the bloodlines, Marty said. He got all his sheep from Russell Emerson’s Forest Range Station. "I’ve shorn a lot of sheep and I’ve shorn around the world but there’s no sheep like the Forest Range bloodlines.”Marty’s pace has slowed since he was diagnosed with emphysema about five years ago. He has never smoked, but thinks the cempie wool fibre off the back hocks and top knots of crossbred sheep, when cut off with the handpiece and inhaled, is responsible for his lung disease. "I’m as good as a man short.”Despite that, he doesn’t want to sit at home. "I’m meeting interesting people with the lifestyle shearing trailer. It just keeps me involved in the industry. I’ve got to do something.”"I have had a very fortunate life really, and if I pass away tomorrow it’s without any regrets,” Marty said. "I’ll be here for a day or two yet I hope.”

Liz Collins with sons Ethan and MaxSUE WARDSAlmost 20 years after starting the clothing label Chalkydigits right here in Wanaka, founder Liz Collins is putting her business "into hibernation” to focus on family life.Chalkydigits came about when Liz, a graphic designer, and her then boyfriend, local lad Matt Squires, teamed up to develop his idea of a website to provide information about local rock climbing routes around Wanaka."We hung out at Cafe Zone and dreamed up Chalkydigits. Every company has a branded beanie or a hoody, so I started to add those onto the idea,” Liz said.They created a basic website and Liz added pictures of T-shirts and hoodies with designs. "We thought we’d put a bit of a teaser line at the end of it: ‘coming to all good climbing stores near you soon’.”Liz was shocked when, the next day, a large outdoor retail chain rang her and asked to see the products. "I said, ah - we haven’t made anything yet. Okay, um – sure, we’ll see you in six months.”That decision sparked a clothing label which has become a "lovemark” brand in Australasia with the tagline (true to its word) ‘ethical fashion made in New Zealand’."We had the concept as there really wasn’t any cool clothes for climbers or outdoor enthusiasts,” Liz said. "There were obviously cool clothes for skaters and surfers, but the outdoor and climbing world only had really naff taupe zip-off trousers. I really felt like there was a gap there so we created some designs that people with a love of the outdoors and quirk could relate to.”Liz was visiting Wanaka during a road trip around the South Island reconnecting with her homeland after a big stint in advertising in Sydney."I think i just stopped here on the way through and never left, because I loved it. I was over the whole world of advertising and the commercialism of it. It was just too intense and didn’t really align with what I was into or my values.”With six months to create a small range of clothes, Liz and Matt started researching. "We didn’t have any idea. We went to Christchurch and found a pattern maker, found the zip people, the fabric people, and started talking to people.”It was a challenging introduction to a challenging industry. Luckily Liz loves a challenge."When I have a vision in my head about something I obsess about it. If I can picture it I just have to get to that point. I really loved doing the designs then seeing them come to fruition as three-dimensional garments, it’s so satisfying. Seeing others love them and wander down the road wearing them was awesome too.”After six months they created a small range which they took around New Zealand to sell to retailers, some of whom stocked it. "We had a classic contrast of people we showed: some very old school outdoor retailers who wanted to stick to what they knew and some really openminded encouraging retailers who were keen to try something new.”She and Matt would drive to Christchurch from Wanaka, often sleeping in their little Honda Civic by the beach, madly go about creating a range of garments - until their phone bills got to $500 a week and they realised they really needed to move to Christchurch.Now as a mother of two young boys, Liz remembers this time with disbelief. "Such a huge amount of energy I must have had. It feels like a lifetime ago.”Having the garments made in New Zealand was not negotiable for Liz. "I can’t imagine anything else. That’s where my values lie - supporting local communities and local industry, and with that the quality, the ease of it, the boutique nature of being able to do smaller runs.”An image from the last (for now) Chalky Digits rangeOver the past 18 years Liz has mostly kept to providing seasonal ranges, but has done a few other things, including two fashion ranges and a kids’ range ("Chalkymidgets”). Chalky was the first brand to print on merino in NZ, pushing some boundaries to learn how to create something different the market hadn’t seen before.The "lightbulb moment” for Liz was when the business got involved with conservation projects. The first was raising money, through marketing a wee pin badge of the South Island robin, to contribute to a fund for DOC to relocate the robin to Chalky Island in Fiordland. ("It’s not our island!” Liz said. "It’s called Chalky Island because of its amazing white chalky cliffs.”)"That was an incredible project. When I realised we could do that, with people who share the same values, I thought ‘this is why I’ve been working so hard to keep the business going’. Otherwise yes, we’re creating awesome clothes, we’re employing local people, but we’re just making more clothes, in a world that has lots of clothes.”Since then Chalky has been involved with "heaps” of conservation projects. "I’ve always had a real love for nature and the outdoors and birds. My inspiration has always come from there so I was stoked to be able to give back to something I feel I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from,” she said.At its peak (around 2009) Chalkyigits was sold in about 60 retail stores around New Zealand and Australia. Since then, the industry has changed radically as online shopping developed."That was a massive change for us and for all the retailers we were stocking,” Liz said. Finding retailers who shared the value of New Zealand made clothing - a much more expensive option - was a challenge."Without open-minded and value based retailers like Bivouac Outdoor, Chalkydigits wouldn’t have survived,” Liz said. Decode in Queenstown has also been a long-standing supporter of the brand and Liz said she is grateful for these retailers who cared more for supporting New Zealand made and independent designers than the bottom line.Retailers started dropping them because they were too expensive compared to brands made offshore. Liz (by then she was managing the company; she and Matt had gone their separate ways) had staff and overheads and needed to produce more units to break even.Lots of people wanted to buy the brand, but it was hard to find retailers to stock it. Liz set up the Chalkydigits website and it started cranking. It was a harder business model (you have to hold all the stock yourself and take the risk you’re going to sell it), but the website gave Liz the freedom to control how the range was presented and she was able to get it to the small corners of the country.The clothing industry in New Zealand has been decimated in the past ten years, Liz said. "Everybody’s gone off shore, it’s hard to get fabric, there’s no training for younger machinists coming up through the industry. There’s not much manufacturing capacity in New Zealand anymore. It's here but you have to work hard to find it and make it work for the demands a fashion label has competing with a lot of international brands. It's a shame because there is a lot of skill here.""It is expensive to make New Zealand-made, because people get fair wages here and work under fair conditions so it costs a huge amount to make a good product here. A lot of people probably look at it and go, that’s so expensive; but actually what we’re making out of it, in terms of paying wages and overheads, is just enough to keep going. It’s such a fine line.” (Liz recommends people watch the documentary China Blue to put the costs in perspective.)The Christchurch earthquakes had a big impact on Liz’s business, making it challenging to get anything done. After her son Ethan was born (he’s nearly four) Liz realised she couldn’t continue successfully with the business and being present in motherhood."It requires 120 percent effort to keep a business going in this difficult industry. You’ve got to be on top of your game, a step ahead of the rest all the time. Until I had kids that’s pretty much all I thought about day and night,” Liz said.She stepped back from the business a lot, and moved with her partner Ian to Lake Hawea. Since then they’ve been joined by baby Max (he’s almost one)."I’d like to say I’m putting Chalky into hibernation. I work better with just leaving things open-ended.” She feels too protective of her business to sell it and see the manufacturing go overseas and wants the option to grow on what she's built.Who knows what the future holds, Liz said, but for she is looking for other pursuits, having realised in the past week how much she misses creative expression. She’s keen to do more local conservation projects, hands -on and using her marketing/design skills, is looking forward to getting back into climbing and spending more time with her boys."I’m at an interesting transitional stage, but I’ll need ways of expressing myself artistically - more hands-on, more crafty and less commercial,” she said.Meanwhile the brand’s last summer range - for now - is for sale online (click MORE below to check it out) and also available at the Chalkydigits design store in Christchurch, which will remain open until mid-January. It may be your last chance to secure something from this lovemark brand conceived in Wanaka.PHOTOS: Supplied

Chris Arbuckle on the shores of Lake Wanaka.MADDY HARKERAfter spending his early life on the remote Mount Aspiring Station then heading off to work in environmental management in New Zealand and abroad, Chris Arbuckle has now returned to the place that first inspired his deep love of nature.Chris moved back to Wanaka just a week ago, and has set up home in a caravan on the shores of Glendhu Bay."I don’t think I’ll ever leave this place now,” Chris said.As a child, Chris’s family alternated between winters in Wanaka and summers in the remote Matukituki Valley. His father was a deer culler, killing deer for meat. "It was a pretty sparse existence,” Chris said."Thinking about it, that probably explains why I’ve gone back to a caravan.”Chris works as an environmental management consultant under his company Aspiring Environmental. He’s also one half of the Wanaka-based Touchstone Project, alongside Eddie Spearing. Chris began Aspiring Environmental while living in Dunedin, but Wanaka inspired its name."I love that space up at Mount Aspiring and I thought to myself, ‘you had to aspire to do something’ too. There’s a link to the mountains there in the name.” Environmental management wasn’t Chris’ original plan: when he left school he planned to become a wildlife ranger at the Department of Conservation."DOC was full, so I decided I better head off to uni,” Chris said.After obtaining a Diploma in Wildlife Management, and a Masters in Zoology (looking at the effects of farmland use on freshwater), Chris managed a research project through the university, called the Taieri and Southern Rivers Programme.After university, Chris spent 20 years working in an impressive range of roles focused on freshwater science, policy and leadership, particularly management of freshwater.The work was satisfying and aligned with his passions, but in 2013 Chris decided to step out on his own. It "was about a need to re-engage with my children after years climbing ladders,” Chris said.A few years on, Chris’s daughter Danielle is now 19 and attending university in Dunedin, while his son Braden, 15, lives in Dunedin with his mother but plans to spend summers in Wanaka.The Touchstone Project is one of the things that has drawn Chris back to Wanaka. It is a direct action initiative supporting those concerned about the Lake Wanaka water catchment, raising awareness of impacts around the lake, and looking at how individuals can have a positive influence on the water in the lake.Chris and Eddie met after a Chris returned a wayward biking helmet to Eddie’s son after a biking competition: they quickly connected through their shared love of Lake Wanaka.Touchstone is amping up now: it has received government funding for a citizen lake monitoring project. Chris loves working closely with people who care about the environment. It was this group that discovered the sewage leak on Stoney Creek recently."The work I’m doing is educational, it’s not trying to find blame. The point of Touchstone is to raise awareness.”

The UCCMT committee celebrating Christmas and looking forward to yet another year of fun fundraisers. (Back row, from left: Noeline Harridge, Mary Holland, Jill Schaefer, Pam Horne , Laurel Gilks, Diana McLachlan, Derek Valentine, Dave Evans; front row, from left: Yvonne Gale, Dazza Sherwin, Kate Lovell. Absent: Sharyn Mathias) LIZ BRESLIN Fun fact: Here in the Upper Clutha we are further away from the sea than almost any other place in New Zealand. Not-so-fun fact: We are also one of the furthest away from hospitals, making accessing medical care a challenge for some people, especially families with young children.So thank goodness for the Upper Clutha Children’s Medical Trust (UCCMT), who, since 2009 have provided financial assistance to more than 200 local children in need of medical care. In 2016 they gained recognition in the Trustpower Community Awards as regional winners in the Health and Wellbeing category and they continue to go from strength to strength in the community.Current chairperson Noeline Harridge explained how the UCCMT works. Set up by Bev Rudkin in November 2009, there are five trustees and 12 people in total on the committee.Committee members have changed over the years, with Bev, and others, moving on to other volunteer projects, while new people come in to take their places. Jonette Hodge, who recently passed away, is one member who will be missed for her wisdom in discussions and her expertise with tickets at events.Fun fact: None of the members are born and bred locals, Noeline said. They’ve all migrated here in the last decade or so, and they make sure to use their big city experience and connections in fundraising to the max for the UCCMT.They certainly aren’t short of ideas. Noeline highlighted the importance of keeping fundraising functions new and fresh, so while they know that Ladies’ Lunches will be well-supported, they always want to make sure they’re well worth attending. Hence themed efforts like the ‘Old Bags Lunch,’ where everyone who attended brought along bags and jewellery to be resold to raise funds.Committee member Sharyn Mathais’s favourite fundraising event so far has been the ‘Vintage Champagne Brunch’ held at Corbridge Barn last year."It was seeing all the generations together,” she said. "The school kids who did the modelling, their mothers, who volunteered to help and then the grandmothers. Us. And all the businesses who helped too.” Sharyn also mentions the three years of Melbourne Cup parties at Lone Star as putting the fun into fundraiser.The amount of community support the UCCMT receives is widespread. People can donate through the website (uccmedtrust.co.nz) and in person, and frequently do. Last year saw Dazza and Leon’s Team Kiwi Kite Surfers at the Mongol Rally with the UCCMT as their charity of choice. An Enterprise group at Mount Aspiring College partnered with Wanaka Chocolate to create a limited edition fundraiser chocolate bar. And then there was young Lily Wilson who sold homemade Christmas cards and donated an impressive $60 to the cause.All the monies raised goes towards helping school aged children from the Upper Clutha who are referred by professionals to the UCCMT for medical assistance.They cover a comprehensive range of physical and mental health needs, with the committee discussing each application at length to see how and where they can best assist. Some examples of costs that can be considered are specialist medical appointments, speech therapy, physiotherapy and occupational therapy, supply of health care needs and equipment, counselling, assessments and tutoring for specific learning disabilities. Travel and accommodation may also be covered.Further information on eligibility, how to apply or make a donation is available on the website - click MORE below.PHOTO: Supplied

Isla Burgess LIZ BRESLIN An eminent medical herbalist who has made her home near Wanaka has finely tuned herself to the natural world, and is helping others to do the same.Isla Burgess has long been searching to understand and move within the natural world as if we’d had no artificial Cartesian split between humans and everything else.One of the focal points of her master’s degree in holistic science addressed the question: Can quantum physics provide an understanding of the tohunga’s world?Four and a half years ago, Isla moved ‘back’ here, to the area where she feels connected. Though she grew up in Dunedin, it felt like coming home. As a child, she’d go on family holidays to Middlemarch and remembers the utter peace of sitting in a raincoat by the river in the rain. As the third of four children, peace wasn’t always an easy commodity.Walking around town now, Isla notices plants and their connections in the same way other people might casually study shoes or haircuts. She explains, "I had a tutor who said ‘Every subject well studied creates a new organ of perception,’ so when you are finely tuning yourself to the natural world then you study the phenomena in a different way.”Isla revels in 14 and a half hectares (35 acres) of land and she’s been busy planting natives and deciduous trees and creating herb, fruit and vegetable gardens over a whole hectare.She’s a Fellow of the NZ Association of Medical Herbalists, teaches online courses and has, this week, brought out her second book, The Biophilic Garden, through her own publishing imprint, Viriditas Publishing. The cover shows the life cycle of a rose and the inside pages approach plantlife from the angles of thinking, feeling, sensing and intuiting. It’s a Jungian thing.Other than a bit of skiing at Treble Cone, Isla’s commitment to her passion is total and it’s been quite a journey from science teacher to an international speaker on the herbalist scene, with a focus on the area of women’s reproductive health.At school, she says she was "not very good at being confined and prescribed from 8.30 to 4,” but found her own rhythms in running her own herbal medicine college, which she established in 1990 in Cambridge (the one in the North Island). She describes the time as "a decade of real excitement in the herbal medicine world.”During that time, Isla was keen to be mentored by the best in "different ways of seeing the world and our relationship with that world”, and so, every week, she would call Tuhoi tohunga Hohepa Kereopa, and ask him to take her on. Every week, she recalls, "he would say ‘phone me next week’ and one day I phoned and he said ‘come tomorrow’ so I had to drop everything and go.”That first time, "we went into the bush, he stripped the berries off a tute plant, which I knew was poisonous, looked me in the eves, said "hold out your hand,” squeezed the juice out and said "drink”. I realised it was a test of trust and I drank it. But I found out afterwards the juice is the only part of the plant that is not toxic.”That was the start of a series of really challenging tests. Next year it took Isla only one phone call, and his influence is still huge in her life. "He’s not alive now but his presence is definitely in this book.”Through her teaching and her books, Isla feels a "huge responsibility to educate people about how to use local plants to enhance their health and wellbeing.”She’s blogging about the book launch, facilitated by "the wonderful people at Wanaka library”. Click MORE below for the blog, and to find out many more details about her work.And as to the quantum question? Well, Isla says, she "can’t give a definitive yes/no answer to that, but can say that if one fully engages in that world an understanding of both is enhanced.”PHOTO: Supplied

Jane Stalker with her Local Heroes medal. MADDY HARKER Two Wanaka locals have been recognised for their work in the community at the 2017 Kiwibank Local Heroes Awards held in Dunedin on Monday.The Local Heroes Awards celebrates people whose selflessness and determination has made a difference in the community.Wanaka’s Jane Stalker and Sonya Palmer were awarded medals, along with 17 other outstanding Otago people.Jane, whose involvement in the Wanaka A&P Show for the last 20 years has helped it become what it is today, described the experience of attending the event as "humbling”."It made me feel really good to be a part of it,” Jane said.It was difficult for Jane to accept the award as an individual when so many people were involved in the A&P Show, she said."I accepted it on behalf of our committee members and all the people that put the work in to make the event happen.”The evening included drinks and nibbles for award winners and their families, as well as representatives from Dunedin City Council and Kiwibank.Meeting other award recipients was a highlight for Jane."They were lovely, lovely people. People from all walks of life, lots of different types of people who had done a variety of things in the community.”Sonya (17), who was celebrated for her contribution to anti-bullying group Sticks ‘n’ Stones, was not able to attend, but told the Wanaka App she was honoured be recognised."It’s pretty incredible because I’m just a young person and I didn’t think I’d get anything amongst all these adults that have done far more than me,” Sonya said.Sonya has been part of Sticks ‘n’ Stones for the last four years. She’s helped facilitate Pink Shirt Day and Random Acts of Kindness Day at school; visited Christchurch last school holidays to be part of the Vodafone Change Accelerator programme where she built a website for the group; attended a Wellington-based conference, ‘Positive Behaviour for Learning’; and is currently creating a new programme at school called Project Connect."I’m working with two other friends trying to make this programme that offers, especially new students, help with making friends and feeling a connection to the school, and to help promote friendships between seniors and juniors,” Sonya said.Project Connect will be implemented at Mount Aspiring College in 2018, which is also Sonya’s final year of school.Kiwibank received a total of 750 nominations for the awards from all around the country. Jane and Sonya were two of the 350 people around the country who were recognised for their exceptional work in the community.PHOTO: Wanaka App