Jamie Urquhart of Hawea’s Nook Nursery hasn’t let the weeds grow under his feet since he retired a few years ago: he has swapped trees for Tai Chi, and plans to spend the next three years studying the martial art in California."It will change my life - it’s already changing it,” Jamie said of his decision to begin a three year course studying White Crane Tai Chi and Qigong. He will leave for the USA in August, leaving the Nook behind for a while, along with his wife, three of his children who live close by, and seven grandchildren.Jamie, 62, said the move will get him out of the garden and off his children’s hands. "No more pulling weeds,” Jamie said. "It’s given me a new energy, a new direction.”His family (children Gabriel, Lochlan, Eli and WIllis) are all "a bit jealous” of his new direction, Jamie said, and Vicki, his partner of more than 40 years, is very supportive. "The easiest way to keep your relationship alive is to live in different houses, towns or countries,” Jamie joked.Jamie spent 30 years developing Nook Nursery, which he closed in 2012. "It was a lot to let go of. It was good to let go of it,” he said. After retiring, he and Vicki travelled around Australia for nine months, but since then he had been searching for something else to do with his time. "I sort of threw it out to the universe and this is what came back,” he said.Jamie has always been interested in the Chinese model. He first studied traditional Chinese massage in the 1980s and had his first taste of Tai Chi 15 years ago, taking lessons from Wanaka’s Sifu Glenn Hight, aka the G Man. "He gave me a really good grounding,” Jamie said.Jamie wanted to immerse himself in Tai Chi and Qigong and thought of going to China, but was put off by the language barrier and the approach to teaching there. He first came across his teacher, Dr Yang Jwing-Ming, in a CNN interview on TV. "I was really impressed about how he dealt with the interviewer, the way he spoke, his ease,” Jamie said.Jamie’s son Eli had hurt his back and Jamie was looking for something that would help. He came across some videos by Dr Yang on easing back pain. He googled Dr Yang and found he has a training centre in Northern California which offered - at that stage - a ten year course. Jamie emailed him to apply for entry to the course and Dr Yang emailed back suggesting he may want to attend a shorter course first to see whether the training and the environment suited him. There were a few courses available over five weeks and Jamie signed up for them all: Tai Chi form, basic Qigong, meditation and massage.He loved the environment. The centre is in Northern California, off-the-grid, with organic gardens, chooks and great food. Jamie enjoyed being part of community learning new skills and interacting with others. One day during training he was standing balanced on bricks: a brick on its end under each foot. "I was totally in the zone. I had a wee afternoon drop-off,” Jamie said. He lost his balance, woke up and stepped back, falling with his weight on his shoulder.The resulting injury - a grade 3 separation of the AC joint - hasn’t put Jamie off. He practices Tai Chi and Qigong for at least an hour and a half most days (he wakes up about 5am and likes to practice early) - and he’s back on the bricks. The tangible feeling of physical energy, or ‘chi’, happens only occasionally, Jamie said. "But when something like that happens it makes you want more.”Tai Chi dates back about 400 years and Qigong dates back about 4000. Dr Yang told Jamie: "I can teach you everything I know in ten years but it will take you 30 years to learn it”. Dr Yang’s personal goal to become enlightened through meditation, Jamie said. "Most of the training is about developing the skill to ‘know without knowing’.”Only six people are accepted for the three-year course, with the selection process taking more than a year. Candidates must be be fit, committed, and be able to get on with people, Jamie said. He’s not concerned about the very structured life he will be living (meditation starts at 6am, and students will have perhaps five hours to themselves each day) as he grew up in a structured environment. He also remembers early morning runs at boarding school (Otago Boys), ”rain, snow, whatever”.These formative experiences have set the scene for Jamie’s early-rising, busy approach to life - one which will be focused on Chinese martial arts and energy practice, rather than tending trees, for the next three years.PHOTO: Vicki Urquhart

Wanaka performer and vocal tutor Jenn Shelton is walking her talk, preparing to wow audiences on stage with the musical State Highway 48.Jenn is currently in rehearsals in Auckland for the rock musical. She is one of a cast of 10, including the well-known leads Shane Cortese (Shortland Street, Outrageous Fortune) and Delia Hannah (a highly acclaimed musical theatre performer) - both of whom have performed on the West End and Broadway."It’s such a privilege and an honour to work with them. They're very talented,” Jenn told the Wanaka App.Jenn was flown to Auckland a few weeks ago for a call-back audition - called while she was in the middle of a concert for her Wanaka Singing students. "It is good for me to walk the talk,” Jenn said. "I currently have 30 private singing students and two vocal groups in Wanaka and it’s good for my students to see me out there 'doing' it.”State Highway 48, first staged in 2014, tracks the life and times of an everyday family as they navigate the road of middle age. Featuring 26 original songs, the musical looks at changes in family, the workplace and friendships, set against the backdrop of the recession and with the lead character dealing with depression. The musical’s publicity describes it as "unique, touching and universally relevant”, with a message for everyone about recognising depression and facing up to it, as well as communication, love, friendship and the strength of the family unit.State Highway 48 will tour the North Island from August 19 to October 29. There are also plans to tour all the main centres of New Zealand early next year and possibly Australia.PHOTO: Supplied

Doug Stalker has been voted the new president of the Upper Clutha A&P Society, as preparations for the 80th Wanaka Show are underway.Doug is a helicopter pilot and fencer who has spent the past two years as senior vice president and the two years before that as junior vice president. He is joined by Grant Ruddenklau as the new senior vice president and Mike Scurr as the new junior vice president. Doug replaces Tarras farmer Robbie Gibson, who has held the president’s role for the past two years."It’s an honour and a privilege to be elected president,” Doug said. "What makes it pleasurable is having a good, solid, enthusiastic team around you – including the show committee, our sponsors and our many volunteers – all of which help put on a hugely popular, major annual event for Wanaka.”Doug has been involved in the Wanaka Show for most of his life, having competed in equestrian events as a child and teenager, and had parents who were heavily involved at committee level. He has also spent more than 10 years in charge of the cattle section of the show.Doug acknowledged Robbie’s contribution over the past two years: "The Wanaka Show has evolved significantly in recent years and Robbie certainly helped move it along. He has been instrumental in securing corporate sponsorship for the show and will continue to help with this. We’re a not-for-profit society so it’s essential that we gain sponsorship to help deliver an event of national significance.”Preparations are underway for the 80th annual show which will be held on March 10 - 11, 2017. Next year will be a busy one for the society, as it will also host the Royal Agricultural Society (RAS) conference in Wanaka and the RAS National Golden Fleece Exhibition on June 23 to 24.PHOTO: Supplied

Whether you enjoyed or just endured the post-natal coffee group, or if you don’t have a clue what coffee groups do, Losing Faith, a new play written by local playwright Liz Breslin, has something for you.Set in the lead character Faith’s lounge, the play invites the audience to watch Faith, a first-time mother, as she hosts coffee groups, meets with the Plunket nurse, spends time with her husband, and time alone.It’s a darkly comic look at life after birth and the issue of post-natal depression (the trigger-warning tag on the play’s poster advises viewers to be aware the play contains "distressing baby cries, post-natal depression and sweary language”). It’s an honest take on a subject - parenthood - that can be both one of life’s best experiences, and one of its most difficult ones."Comedy is such a good vehicle for serious issues,” Liz explained. "Dark humour is a coping strategy in its own right.” And she pointed out that post-natal depression is a timely topic, with the numbers of parents who suffer from it on the increase. "It’s 15 percent of new mothers and 13 percent of new fathers. It’s a lot of us,” she said.The play is directed by Fiona Armstrong, who was one of the lead actors in Liz’s last locally-staged play, the freedom camping farce ‘It’s Your Shit’. The show enjoyed five sold-out performances in the Hawea Flat Hall and a two-night stint in Arrowtown.Losing Faith also features Gilly Pugh, well-known in Wanaka for writing and directing her own pieces and running the Aspiring Children’s Theatre School. Becky Plunkett, who trained formally in London and was a "jobbing actor” for a few years before taking up ski instructing, plays the role of Faith. And Will Cole, the youngest member of the cast, will be familiar to audiences from his role as the Reverend in this year’s Mount Aspiring College musical, ‘Footloose’.None of the new parents in the cast are parents themselves. To this end, they have been researching hard, and director Fiona has been putting them through their physical paces. "They’re an amazing group of actors who have invested so much into their characters. They have done their research, they have improvised key moments in their lives and they have both physically and mentally committed to telling us their story,” Fiona said.‘Losing Faith’ is being performed from September 27-30 at 7.30pm, and on October 1 at 11am, at Edgewater Resort.Cash tickets can be purchased for $20 ($10 concessions) from Pembroke Wines on Dungarvon St.PHOTO: Laura Williamson

Wanaka writer Annabel Wilson has won the inaugural AAWP/UWRF Emerging Writers' Prize, awarded by the Australasian Association of Writing Programs (AAWP) and the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival (UWRF).The 2016 theme was 'Tat Tvam Asi', a Hindu concept meaning 'I am you, you are me'.Annabel won for her prose poem ‘Quire’, which she described as "25 vignettes which 'sing out' to each other.” Quire is an old fashioned book-binding term, but it also means to sing in unison, and is the front part of the church where singers perform together - probably, Annabel said, the basis for the modern term "choir”."They are snapshots based on observations and journal entries centred on time I spent in Bali,” she said, adding the "Quire’ pieces were developed further during a period when she was working towards her Masters In Creative Writing through Massey University.The work is a thoughtful, meditative and humourous mix, some of it beautifully precise: "Two cups on the doorstep. A red-beaked plant drapes like a Christmas bauble above us, velvety to touch. We sit here every morning, sip sweet tea. A sooty butterfly swoops over your shoulder.” And some of it whimsical: "Boys on the beach selling Bintang from chilly bins ask where is your husband? Where you go next? Sunset turns everything copper. I buy a towel that says Toughen Up Princess and a floaty dress.”One of the judges, associate professor Dominique Hecq, gave the following feedback on Annabel’s entry: "‘Quire’ is compelling and haunting. It is also playful and linguistically inventive. With its cool tone and striking imagery, this work seems to me unostentatiously individual and ambitious - fastidious but also marked by unexpected images and turns. ‘Quire’ takes no shortcuts; it works always subtly and with its own particular combination of wryness and lyricism.”Previously an English and Media Studies teacher at Mount Aspiring College, Annabel is spending this year based in Wellington, where she has been writing full time as well as developing a feature-length play entitled 'No Science To Goodbye' with director Anna Shaw, also a former MAC teacher.Annabel’s prize includes a ticket to the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, accommodation for the duration of the festival and $500 towards economy airfares. Her work will also be published in an upcoming issue of Meniscus Literary Journal, and she has been invited to present her work at the annual AAWP conference in Canberra in November.PHOTO: Supplied

MARK THOMASWanaka man Mark ‘Curly’ Thomas opens up about his experiences with clinical depression and the need to talk about what is a treatable illness.Like a shorter, slower version of the great All Black John Kirwan, I have decided to speak up about depression. My life is fantastic and I get immense pleasure from my love of sport, travel and the amazing people around me. But here’s a simple statement of medical fact – I have experienced major episodes of clinical depression since the age of 18. I don’t know how that works. How the same mind that allows me to drink in life like an intoxicating nectar can also turn dog on me and drag me to the depths of emotional hell, but that is the truth of it.I do know that depression can afflict anyone, regardless of how good or seemingly enviable their life is, just like cancer, heart disease or any other illness can strike anybody regardless of how happy, famous or wealthy they are."I will no longer run from depression or from discussion about it"Until now, I dealt with my illness in secret because I grew up in a pre-John Kirwan era when depression and other mental illnesses were stigmatised, taboo, and definitely not openly discussed. I felt ashamed that I suffered from anxiety and depression, and hid it from the world.I no longer feel that way. In fact I have learned something very important, which is one of the reasons I am piping up now. It feels really good to be honest about this condition. It feels good to discuss it openly and by doing so connect with others who have experienced depression or know someone who has.There is beautiful strength to be had in sharing a heavy load with those close to you. In my experience there is only loneliness, emotional misery and a downward spiral in mood if I try to go it alone.I now view mental illness as just like any other form of illness – something nobody chooses or wishes upon themselves, but which has to be dealt with openly and honestly. As my good friend Jeff Ellis (Joffre) told me: "You can’t treat a secret.” And another good mate of mine, Bill Moore, often and wisely states: "The truth will set us free.”Which is why I have chosen to out myself and to stand proud. I will no longer run from depression or from discussion about it. I will no longer pretend it doesn’t occasionally get its claws into me. I would dearly love to think that by doing so I will help people, even just one person, to find a way through the darkness.Because make no mistake, people are suffering out there. Discussion about depression may be uncommon, but the illness itself is not. It is estimated that one in six people will experience depression in their lifetime and one in four will suffer from significant anxiety. So the chances are that you or someone close to you could really benefit from unburdening themselves.Another thing people need to realise about depression is that at its worst, it is a fatal illness. People kill themselves rather than continue living with what they mistakenly believe is a permanent and inescapable sense of emotional pain and hopelessness. That view of the world is of course flawed, but it becomes frighteningly real for those suffering true clinical depression.I surf and kite-surf all around the world. I ski powder runs with my mates every year. I have an incredibly loving, smart and beautiful wife, wickedly good friends and a freehold home. Yet I have fantasised about death many, many times. That is not a reflection on my life, but rather tells the truth about just how misleading, yet compelling and powerful, the lense of depression can be.More than 500 people a year commit suicide in New Zealand. These aren’t just empty numbers. These are real people, our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends and work mates.We all know of someone in our community who has taken their own life. My own father, an immensely intelligent, big-hearted and talented man, a man I am incredibly proud of, killed himself aged 49 after a long bout of depression.WE NEED TO STOP OUR PEOPLE DYING FROM A TREATABLE ILLNESS. We need to normalise depression, to get it out there, so those who are suffering don’t think twice about raising the subject with their friends, their family or their doctor.Depression has made a couple of significant runs at me, convincing me it would be better for all concerned if I no longer existed, that I was a burden. The scary thing about depression is that although it passes it fools people into believing it won’t. Many, many people have died when a better day was undoubtedly just around the corner.Depression can be tricky. It can be sneaky and conniving. It has often persuaded me I should stay in bed, stay quiet, keep my thoughts to myself and battle on alone. I say fuck that. Depression thrives in the darkness, in the dead of night, in the depths of my mind. It does not do nearly as well when I talk about it with someone. It does not do nearly as well when I address it as a problem to be solved rather than an insurmountable mountain of gloom in my soul. Depression recoils when exposed to the light and to love.I don’t suffer from depression all of the time, or even most of the time. But it is a part of my medical landscape which I have to accept. The really good news is that accepting it doesn’t mean lying down and letting it run rampant.Depression is a treatable illness. A big part of that treatment is seeking support when you need it. I sincerely thank my wife, Janey, my family and my friends for the love and support given to me. You held me up when I could barely stand alone. A big part of showing my appreciation is to get well, stay well, and be there to help others along the way.I am here today to tell anyone who cares to listen that it doesn’t matter how low you go, how hopeless and desperate things may seem, there is a way forward. There is love out there. There is help out there. There is a path back to the light, I promise you that. And more often than not that way forward will begin with something as simple as a honest conversation with someone you trust. Try it. I did, and it worked.Need help or advice?https://www.beyondblue.org.au/https://depression.org.nz/PHOTO: Supplied

Wanaka author Nathan Weathington is back from a five-week tour of the United States to promote the release of his latest book, Invasion of the Bastard Cannibals.The book, Nathan’s second, is a comic memoir following on from the equally-memorably named Where the Hell Were Your Parents?, which was released in 2014.Where the Hell Were Your Parents? is a coming of age memoir about growing up "feral” in the rural South, while Invasion of the Bastard Cannibals was described by Nathan as about "the idea of taking someone like me from reserved rural south and moving to the hippie infested-coast of Canada”.Originally from the small American town of Bremen, Georgia, Nathan lived for a time in British Columbia with his Canadian wife, Morgan. The book takes a humorous look at his experiences in western Canada, including the time he met a "retired stripper from a vegan strip club”. There are also anecdotes from his childhood in Georgia, such as about the time Nathan and his brother set up a "racoon removal scheme”.Nathan said one highlight of the tour was launching the book on September 16 at ‘The Shoe Burnin’ Show’ as part of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance’s Discovery Show in New Orleans. Nathan appeared alongside writers like Harrison Scott Key, author of The World’s Largest Man and winner of the 2016 Thurber Prize in American Humor, and New York Times bestselling author Karen White. He said he took the stage after a serious moment in the evening and was told by one of the organisers his job was to make everyone in the room laugh. He did."To see 300 people laughing at some joke I wrote is better than anything,” Nathan said.The tour lasted for nearly six weeks and involved at least one event per day, as well as sometimes a second lasting well into the night. ("My publisher said if I had a speciality in the industry, it is selling books to drunk people,” Nathan laughed).Nathan said touring as a writer is sometimes a surreal experience, as it was not a career he expected to fall into. He has a bachelor of Civil Engineering from Auburn University and an MBA from the University of Victoria, and has worked as everything from a bartender to a maths teacher to, latterly, a media executive putting in 70 to 80 hours a week, something he said he does not miss. He moved to New Zealand five years ago with Morgan and their two children, now aged seven and nine. The books had their genesis in a moment onstage in a Korean karaoke bar where Nathan, who is not much of singer, elected to tell jokes and funny stories instead. "I had all these skits and stories in my head, but had never written them down or performed them. I basically delivered a five-minute comedy set.” He said there was a brief millisecond of silence, then the whole audience started laughing. "That’s when I was hooked,” he said.He explained that, while he loves writing and poetry, he still doesn’t put himself in the same category as many writers. "As my publisher said, we’re not selling prose, we’re selling laughs,” he said.As for the best feedback he has received on his writing, Nathan said it has to be this response from a reader called Michelle Goodwine: "My husband just read this book for the third time. I’ve never actually seen him read a book. I honestly thought he couldn’t read."  You can buy Invasion of the Bastard Cannibals now from Amazon. See More below. PHOTO: Supplied

"Skylines, snowlines, fishing lines, washing lines: the ties that bind.”So begins the programme for the new work by Wanaka playwright Annabel Wilson set to have its local debut next month with a "showing of moments”. The still-evolving play, called ‘No Science To Goodbye’, will be showcased on Saturday November 12 at The Rippon Hall through a presentation of moments from the work with music and spoken word woven in."It’s more than a rehearsed reading, it will be performed scripts down,” Annabel told the Wanaka App, saying the "showing of moments” would be a key part of the development phase of the work, which is set in an alpine town similar to Wanaka. The show will be followed by a Q & A session with the audience.In the play, Elsie, an expat writer, returns to her hometown to look after her terminally-ill brother, and finds herself confronted by past. The story had its genesis in the creative section of Annabel’s Master's thesis, ‘Aspiring Daybook’, which she completed in 2014 for her Masters in Creative Writing through Massey University, and for which she received a Distinction grade.A former English teacher at Mount Aspiring College. Annabel has been working on the script while living in Wellington, where she moved earlier this year to spend time focussing on her writing. The play is being directed by another MAC alumnus, the school’s former Head of Drama Anna Shaw. Set designer Ivy Urquhart also attended MAC as a teenager.They are joined by a cast of Wellington actors, Frankie Berge, Calvin Petersen and Jack Sergent-Shadbolt, as well as Electric Wire Hustle's Cory Champion, who created the soundscapes for ‘No Science To Goodbye’.Annabel was this year named the 2016 R.A.K. Mason Writing Fellow, which earned her a residency in the Wairarapa to work on the play, and has received support from the Central Lakes Arts Support Scheme to bring the work to Wanaka.Earlier this year she also won the inaugural AAWP/UWRF Emerging Writers' Prize, awarded by the Australasian Association of Writing Programs and the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival, for her poem ‘Quire’.See ‘No Science To Goodbye - Moments from a new play’ at The Rippon Hall on Saturday November 12 from 4pm.to 5pm.Get tickets here: http://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2016/no-science-to-goodbye-moments-from-new-play/wanakaPHOTO: Supplied

They say travelling is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer, a statement borne out by listening to anyone tell their stories of places and sights seen. So it was with some excitement I sat down with Fran and Gary Tate, owners of Latin Link and South America Journeys.As the names suggest, the couple specialise in travel to South America. That’s where the couple spent their honeymoon, and two children and more than 30 years later they still love introducing others to the sights and sounds of the "continent”."We’ve been back there annually since those days,” Gary said, "developing new styles of travel tours, bike trips which we’ve initiated - we’re constantly doing new things.”The Tates’ love affair with travel started in Auckland in 1984 when they launched Adventure World, a wholesale travel company which grew significantly with 45 staff and offices around the world. In the late 90s they decided the Auckland lifestyle wasn’t for them and moved to Wanaka. After a transition period they sold Adventure World. "We’d like to think we helped initiate interest in South America. There’s lots of different areas; we still haven’t seen two thirds of it,” Fran said.On moving to Wanaka the Tates decided to start a lodge and operated Minaret Lodge for 15 years, selling the Eely Point Rd property this year. Their interest in travel and South America never waned and with loyal clients and industry contacts they started Latin Link Adventure and South America Journeys, operating from Wanaka."We’ve kept it fairly low key, but of recent times South America is back in the trend again, especially with Air New Zealand flying directly,” Fran said."We do about 15 trips a year now,” Gary said. "I do all the organising. It’s a mixture of general interest type tours, nature, wildlife, kite surfing, wine tours. My latest project is organising a car rally for three months.” Fran’s specialty is guiding mountain bike tours through the Andes, aided by her proficiency in Spanish.Trips for 2017 and 2018 are now being marketed. "We have a maximum of 14 people on the tours, it’s quite intimate with personalised service,” Gary said. Fran is quick to nominate Bolivia and Peru as their favourite places: "The scenery, the mountains, the remoteness and the culture, and the people. It’s very different yet there are similarities in the landscape to Wanaka.”As for the future: "We’re just going to keep doing what we do, and what we know how to do,” Fran said. "And it’s fun.”For more information see http://www.latinlink.co.nz/ and http://www.southamericajourneys.com/.PHOTO: Wanaka App

Paul Roy has seen a lot of changes over the course of a 40-year career making films, but one thing has stayed the same: no matter what the technology, or the budget, it’s the story that matters most.Paul has been working in film since the early seventies, mostly making documentaries which have seen him travel to more than 40 countries and spend eight to nine months on the road every year. He is best-known locally for the 70-minute feature documentary ‘Deer Wars’, about helicopter deer culling in the Southern Alps, and its follow-up, ‘Deer Devils’, which focuses on live deer capture.Originally from Hamilton, Paul started his working life at the New Zealand government’s National Film Unit (NFU); there was no film school back then, so the NFU served as his first training ground. He then went to the United Kingdom and worked for the BBC on documentaries, something he said gave him an "incredible grounding” in the industry. More than twenty years in Sydney followed, working for SBS Television, ABC TV, and for the German ZDF and ARD networks as a stringer, covering Australasia and the South Pacific."We had amazing freedom back then,” he told the Wanaka App. "They’d say, we’ve got something in Papua New Guinea, and we’d leave the next day.”Paul has also worked extensively for Al Jazeera, producing the observational documentary ‘Indian Hospital’, which looks at the work of Dr Devi Shetty (one of the world’s top cardiac surgeons, he was Mother Teresa’s specialist), who does surgery on a large scale at the Narayana Hrudayalaya Hospital Complex in Bangalore, creating efficiencies that allow the facility to provide world-class surgery on a "pay what you can” model.Like stories about locals? See People in the Wanaka AppLooking back now, as free online content and reality TV come to dominate our screen time, Paul said he felt fortunate to have enjoyed the career he had and to make a good living at it. "We were really lucky in the period during which we were making films. I’ve been able to always be an independent filmmaker,” he said. "Now, I’ve got ten stories in New Zealand that would be wonderful, but the networks won’t take them. Shows like ‘Piha Rescue’ and ‘Road Cops’ are so cheap to produce.”Evolving technologies, however, have also had a positive impact, Paul said, extending his working life and allowing him to work more efficiently. "We used to travel with boxes and boxes of equipment,” he said, but in recent years he has been able do a major series by himself with just a backpack, thanks to the shrinking size of camera equipment and HD technology.Based in Wanaka for the past 13 years, Paul was also able to move here from Sydney with his wife and three children thanks to the advent of online and digital technologies, which meant he didn’t need to live near a major television station anymore.The forward march of technology has also allowed Paul to set up a new endeavour, Birds Eye Productions, which provides drone video and photography services for a wide range of things including the marketing of real estate, 3D and 2D mapping, structural inspection of buildings, aerial surveys and weddings."Drones offer a unique perspective,” Paul said, explaining he first started using them on documentary shoots when they were new to the filmmaking scene and required two operators: one to steer and one to man the camera. Now he can do it on his own, and while he is still working at a high level making films and images for clients - tech or not, he said, you still have to have "the eye” - the drone work affords him a slower pace of life, and time to get out more and enjoy his favourite pastime, tramping.He also had a crack, on Friday night (November 11), at his first PechuKucha talk at the PechuKucha Night Wanaka in The Rippon Hall. PechuKucha is a presentation style for which a speaker talks to 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each, a format Paul called "a fantastic discipline”. "You have to be pretty ruthless. You have to really focus on what you’re talking about,” he said. Whether it’s PechuKucha, drones, or making documentaries for major television networks, Paul said the same thing still matters most: the story. "Don’t worry about the technology. The story is what you’re there for,” he said, pointing out that much of the footage for ‘Deer Wars’ was shot on 8mm film by amateurs, and it was the highest-rated show in New Zealand the year it came out. "You have to have technical excellence, but that doesn’t have to overcome the reason you’re there.”PHOTO: Supplied

Wanaka locals know Wanaka Airport operations manager and volunteer fireman Ralph Fegan is a top bloke, and now TVNZ audiences know it too. Ralph was featured last Sunday (November 13) on the One News ‘Good Sorts’ segment, a weekly celebration of unsung Kiwis who are doing good things. He was nominated by fellow firefighter Jodie Rainsford, who praised the caring way Ralph looks after his fellow firefighters, following up with calls and texts to check on them after difficult call-outs.Ralph called the Good Sort experience "very humbling”. "You don’t do these things for recognition, you just do it because you enjoy doing it,” he said.The segment highlighted Ralph’s work with the Wanaka Volunteer Fire brigade, his role officiating at funerals and at weddings, and his skill as a matchmaker - he is reputedly responsible for the pairing of four local couples (leading host Hadyn Jones to call him "Good Cupid” in pre-show publicity). There is also touching footage of a first meeting between Ralph and Gena Bagley. Gena and husband George Konia lost their seven-year-old daughter Scarlett earlier this year, and Ralph managed to organise for a note for Scarlett to be sent skyward on the NASA weather balloon when it launched in May.Ralph said he had organised the gesture through Gena’s father, Ken Bagley, so had valued immensely the opportunity to meet Gena in person through the ‘Good Sort’ filming. "For me, the show was worth doing to meet that lady even for just two or three minutes. That was really special,” he explained.The only part of the segment Ralph said he was a little uncomfortable with was being called "the glue” of the fire brigade. "It’s about everybody, not just one person,” he said. He added he could not do what he does without the exceptional support of his wife, Lynne. Without her help, he said, he wouldn't be able to help others. And with that in mind, it was a good weekend for all the good sorts of the fire brigade, with the official opening of the new fire station in Ballantyne Road, held on Saturday afternoon (November 12). This was followed by the Hollywood Heros Dance Party and auction at Lake Wanaka Centre, a fundraiser for the Wanaka Volunteer Fire Brigade and Wanaka St John Ambulance.‘Good Sorts’ has been airing since 2009, and runs weekly after the weather on Sunday night's on One News.Click More to watch Ralph’s ‘Good Sorts’ segment.PHOTO: Supplied

TIM BREWSTERThe extraordinary life history of a generous donor to the Upper Clutha Hospice Trust has been revealed in a recently-published biography.Stina Mooyman, 93, a Wanaka resident for 20 years, immigrated to Dunedin in 1956 with her mother, brother and his fiancee to escape the ruins and economic hardships of post-WWII Holland.‘Stina’, her biography by Auckland writer Susan Buckland, describes the challenges of growing up in the 1930s during the Depression and living in Nazi-occupied Holland before starting a new life in Dunedin and Te Anau in her thirties.Starting with a job as a kitchenhand in the Otago University residence of Carrington Hall, she went on to found successful businesses in Te Anau with another vigorous Dutch woman, Dirkje (Dick) Veenstra.Retiring to Wanaka in their seventies, Dirkje unfortunately died only a few years after their move, but Stina remained very active in the community, mowing her lawn and tending to her highly regarded gardens at her McDougall St house well into her eighties. She recently moved north permanently to the ‘Ons Dorp’ Dutch retirement village in West Auckland. However, she has left a strong legacy in Wanaka. Through her trustee, John Harrington, she was the foundation donor to the palliative care suite developed by and owned by the Upper Clutha Hospice Trust at the recently-opened Aspiring Enliven Care Centre.The suite is named the Stina Mooyman Palliative Care Suite and is accessible to those suffering terminal illnesses in the region.In the final page of the biography, Stina outlines her reasons for the donation: "New Zealand has been good to me. I feel lucky that I can give something back. Dick and I both wanted to help those who suffered from cancer and so it's her legacy too.”Trust chairman Russell McGeorge told The Wanaka App, "Our trust was stunned when approached regarding Stina’s wonderful donation, as we had not anticipated such individual generosity. It has secured the Trust’s operations and provided a needed facility to the residents of the Upper Clutha.”‘Stina’ is available at Paper Plus in Wanaka and at the care suite at Enliven.PHOTO: Tim Brewster

Wanaka freeskier Janina Kuzma features in an extreme action sports film starring the world’s best female talent, which will premiere in Wanaka this week.Shades of Winter: Between will be unveiled to New Zealand’s snow sports elite and industry VIPs at a screening this Friday (November 25). In the full-length feature film, Kuzma stars alongside Olympic gold medallist Julia Mancuso (USA), two-time Freeride World Tour champion Nadine Wallner (Austria), Evelina Nilsson (Sweden), pro skier and Between filmmaker Sandra Lahnsteiner, and the late Matilda Rapaport (Sweden). Three-time world surf champion Carissa Moore also features in two major surfing segments in the film.A two-year project, Between features the women travelling the globe to conquer some of the most exotic and challenging slopes in the world, including Alaska, Hawaii, Norway, Canada, the European Alps and the Southern Alps of NZ. The film captures the ‘between’ moments throughout the action and is also a tribute to Rapaport, who died in an avalanche in July.Janina has featured in all three films of the Shades of Winter series, and she initiated the New Zealand segment. "It was a dream of mine to one day get the SOW crew to NZ to film a segment. New Zealand has some of the best terrain in the world available by helicopter and I wanted to showcase that. When Sandra proposed the movie Between to me I said she had to film in New Zealand, and we made it happen.”The footage includes heli-skiing on the Mount Larkins Range near Glenorchy, as well as in and around Wanaka. "The girls had never been down to New Zealand so they didn’t know what it would be like. They were blown away,” Janina said.Janina is a Winter Olympian in halfpipe (currently ranked fourth in the world) but she returns to her big mountain skiing roots in Between.Some of the country’s snowsports elite will join Kuzma at Cinema Paradiso on Friday to watch the film, including Beau-James Wells, Sam Smoothy, Nicola Campbell, Anna Smoothy, Sam Lee, Craig Murray and Fraser McDougall – before they all embark on their northern hemisphere season.The premiere, and a special public screening in Wanaka on Saturday (November 26), will act as a fundraiser for a foundation currently being set up in memory of Matilda Rapaport. The film won’t be released for wider distribution until the worldwide tour is completed. Screenings are taking place in the countries where the movie was filmed, as well as at some major international film festivals. Between is expected to be available on iTunes by March 2017.Kuzma leaves New Zealand next month for the northern hemisphere season when she will focus on qualifying for the 2018 Winter Olympics. She’ll also be filming for the fourth Shades of Winter film in between training and competitions.PHOTO: Simon Darby

SEAN NUGENTA MAC student’s startup fresh fruit and vege produce market has taken off, with plans to continue to grow in the future.Freshlink (known as Central Citrus until a recent name change) offers a range of fresh fruit and vegetables out of The Shed on Reece Crescent. Although it only opened in July, the company has quickly established itself in Wanaka, with an estimated 250 to 300 regular customers.The face behind Freshlink, 16-year-old Liam Kirk, says the best way to maintain steady growth is "getting more people to know we’re here.”Kirk first came up with the idea as part of his NCEA Level 1 Business & Economics class, where students were asked to set up their own businesses. Under the name Central Citrus, Kirk sold mandarins across the road from the college, and while it was initially intended to be a short-term project, customers were so impressed they asked Kirk to continue running his business.Since then, Freshlink has continued to grow, adding a wider variety of products and finding itself a new base on Reece Crescent. With no financial backing, the company really has built itself from the ground up, to a point where Kirk believes its competitive prices have influenced price drops at local supermarkets New World and Mediterranean Market.Despite a prosperous start, Kirk is not resting on his laurels. He is planning to start selling fixed-price delivery boxes, similar to Nadia Lim’s My Food Bag, in the near future, and believes it will be a great way to continue growing the business.Kirk has no certain plans on what he wants to do after leaving school, however he has not ruled out the possibility of studying business at university. In the meantime he is preparing himself for a busy summer, as he is finally able to work extended hours at Freshlink without school clogging up his schedule.Those interested in supporting Kirk and his business can email him directly at [email protected] to become a member of Freshlink’s mailing list. Those on the list receive a weekly flyer with the latest range of products on offer at Freshlink.PHOTO: Wanaka App

CAROLINE HARKERA two-week holiday, camping in a Luggate backyard, was all it took for the Marshall-Lea family to decide the Upper Clutha was where they wanted to live. That was during the Christmas holidays of 2011."We camped at my husband Chris’s sister’s place,” said Eve Marshall-Lea. "It was absolute bliss. We were so grumpy the day we had to leave.”Eve, Chris and their sons Owen and Cormick (now 14 and 11) moved from their Christchurch home to an old three-storied A-frame house in Luggate two years later. "It’s got beautiful views from every window,” Eve said. "I’ll never get sick of it.”Before they moved Eve had worked for Youthline and for various companies including one selling fairy lights and another which taught people how to make cheese. She had also been studying extramurally, doing an Information and Library Diploma through the Open Polytechnic. Working in a library was her dream job."After the [Christchurch] earthquakes we were living in a caravan with the boys and it got too hard to study so I stopped for a while, but I’ve finished it now.”Her studies stood her in good stead and two months after moving south Eve got a job as an assistant at the Wanaka Library. Much of her time is spent organising events at the library - and judging by their popularity she’s very good at it. Under Eve’s reign, and with "incredible support” from her boss, library team leader Sue Gwilliam, Eve has produced a huge variety of shows, performances, gigs and exhibitions at the library."We don’t want people to think the library is a place where all you can do is borrow books,” Eve said. "It’s a central part of the community.”Eve’s events over the past three years have included book launches, poetry performances, music gigs, talks and exhibitions. Highlights include a performance by visiting South Auckland poets and a book launch for local children’s author Lucy Davey which brought in a crowd of around 150 people. An exhibition of photographic portraits of 43 Kiwi authors by Maya Moritz was also very popular.Eve is very focussed on delivering events the community wants - so she’s always talking to people about what would appeal to them. ("All suggestions gratefully received.”)"We’re making Saturday a family day at the library so we try to have some live music, and some craft activities for the kids.” The next family day (Saturday December 10) will have a Christmas theme and features local choirs. Other events coming up include book launches for two local authors; Helen Herbert (December 3) and Neal Brown (December 8).Another success for Eve is a foodie book group which has been meeting monthly in the library the past two years. "It’s really popular, especially when we have guest speakers. Next year I’m keen to include cooking demonstrations. Maybe fermented foods. And sushi.”While Eve’s husband Chris is happily employed at Mitre 10 and also works as a commercial photographer, and their boys are enjoying life at Mount Aspiring College ("We couldn’t move them now”), Eve said she couldn’t wish for more than her present job."I love it. The library’s an amazing place to work. And I get to meet so many people. I really want to keep putting on events which will interest people in the community.”If you have an idea for an event you would like to see at the library email Eve on [email protected]: Chris Lea

CAROLINE HARKERWhen Wanaka GP Dr Lucy O’Hagan was asked for a bio as part of her application to study narrative medicine through Boston’s Centre for Narrative Practice, this is what she wrote:I have been a small town doctor for nearly 20 years.I mainly give out tissues and condoms. And tend the wounded. Sometimes at night.I thought I would change medicine -I did not realise medicine would change me - for better or for worse.I like problems but prefer solutions.I am driven by curiosity -I have learnt that things are seldom what they seem.I am the keeper of the town's secretsAnd the towns criers,And I put plasters on.Lucy enjoyed the course so much she has decided to continue her studies in narrative practise with a Masters in General Practice at Otago University. She talked to the Wanaka App about what narrative practise is."I am intrigued by the idea that humans make sense of their world through stories, that we narrate ourselves into being. I sense that medical encounters are just a moment in time in a narrative that holds both past and future. Our assessments are often divorced from the story, static images through a particular lens."I want to use narrative principles in teaching family physicians about clinical encounters. I want to think more about the doctor’s narrative, my own; about the sort of stories doctors inhabit, the stories they are allowed to speak of, the stories that get status, how doctors narrate themselves into being.”Earlier this year Lucy gave a talk about the role of narrative in general practice at a medical educators’ conference. The talk caught the attention of many, including Royal College of General Practitioners CEO Helen Morgan-Banda, who decided to nominate Lucy for the college’s prestigious Eric Elder medal. College communications advisor Janaya Soma was also at the conference. "Lucy gave a fantastic address,” she told the Wanaka App. "Her talk was amusing and funny, but also made a great contribution and encouraged people to think about the future of general practice. She explained how the skill of listening and storytelling fits into that.”Lucy was asked to speak about narrative again at the college’s annual conference, and it was there she was presented with the Eric Elder medal by college president Tim Malloy, who congratulated her on her "lateral thinking always tempered by wisdom”. "I was a bit stunned because I didn’t know it was coming,” Lucy said afterwards.In her talk "Narrating Our Selves” Lucy encouraged fellow doctors to adopt a more ‘reflective, patient-centred doctor narrative’ in their general practise. She said the dominant narrative taught in medical school, which she termed the ‘biomedical brain box narrative’, projects an image of a doctor who is a "highly competitive cognitive expert diagnostician who knows what to do and gets the dose right”. However, she said, this narrative does not welcome other ways of seeing or being a doctor. She asked her fellow GPs to reflect on the question: "Do we want to be factory-farmed doctors sitting alone in individual cells looking straight ahead, fed the diet of evidence and objectivity and measured in terms of our productivity? Or do we want to be free-range doctors choosing our diet, roaming freely with each other seeing the world from different perspectives?”The Eric Elder medal honours Dr Eric Elder, a GP who lived and worked in Tuatapere for 60 years. He was known as the grandfather of vocational training for general practice in New Zealand, creating rural training programmes and pioneering the use of peer review. Ironically Lucy grew up in Southland where her father John was also a GP who worked alongside Eric Elder.After practising medicine in Wanaka for 20 years, Lucy sold her practice in 2015. She now divides her time between homes in Hawea Flat and Dunedin where she continues to work at various practices as well as teaching GPs and studying.PHOTO: Lizzi Yates

CAROLINE HARKERThe arrival of a new butcher in Wanaka a year ago was very much the result of a chance conversation in Northland.Jeff Smith and Kate Gordon-Smith had a lifestyle block in Kaukapakapa and used to employ Helensville longtime butcher Bruce Scott to homekill their lambs. When he was at their property last year Bruce mentioned he had just been down to Wanaka for the shotgun sporting clay national competition. Jeff and Kate said they always holidayed in Wanaka and would love to move south one day. Bruce mentioned there was no dedicated butcher shop in town, Kate said Jeff was looking for a new business and the rest (as the saying goes) is history.Kate talked about the idea to their friend, Wanaka resident Brent Makeham, who said there was a disused butcher shop on Reece Crescent. "That was in July last year and we were here by November,” Kate said.Jeff and Bruce are 50/50 partners in The Butcher’s Block and Smokehouse. Bruce is passing on his smallgoods processing knowledge to Jeff, who now manages that side of the business, producing hundreds of kilos of sausages, bacon, salami and other smallgoods every week.Bruce’s partner Olesia Andronnikova spends most of her day out the front of the shop serving customers and does the office administration, and Kate does the accounts and marketing."We’ve all found our own roles,” Kate said. "We had a few things to sort out but it’s all going very well now. Especially since they pay me.” Kate also has her own business of 15 years, Relish Communications, which she brought south with her.The two couples are celebrating the first anniversary of the Butcher’s Block on Saturday (December 17) with a free barbeque outside the shop from 10am to 2pm (weather permitting).Bruce said their first year has been tough. "I’m really proud of the team. Everyone has pulled together and worked hard. It cost us more to set up this business than anticipated, so we’ve had our challenges but we’re certainly on the positive side of things now and our feedback is fantastic. People are noticing that we are cheaper than the supermarkets. We manufacture everything on site and its all South Island produce. We’re all about supporting the south.” Jeff said locals seem very pleased to have a dedicated butcher in town again. "We’re trying to support the community too. We do fundraising sausages which we sell at no profit. They are $1 each including bread and sauce and lots of people pre-order them for fundraisers. We also do a cheap rate on handmade patties for sports clubs etc and they are going really well."Our first year in business has been better in some areas than we expected, not as good as others. We can’t compete on the wholesale market but people love the quality of our produce, the smallgoods and the prime cuts. We’ve got some really good staff, and the locals have been very good at supporting us."We plan to get bigger and better in the future. The homekill slaughtering side just started in mid-November, and we’re consolidating and expanding, getting our name out there. We still get some locals coming in saying they didn’t know we were here."We would like to get a trailer going in the future, so we can go to the markets, with a BBQ too.”Jeff and Kate are living in Luggate, and Bruce, Olesia and their two-year-old daughter Julia live on Plantation Road and have plans to build on a section in Hawea. Both families say they are very pleased with their move to Wanaka."Oleisa and I both love it down here,” said Bruce. "One of the things I really like about Wanaka is it’s still got that small town local feel, whereas Helensville, where I come from, has really been swallowed up by Auckland and lost that. Now it’s full of takeaway bars and real estate agents. Most of the people who live there commute to Auckland to work and the local businesses are dying. Wanaka still has that ‘look after local’ attitude.”"We’ve got no regrets whatsoever,” Kate said. "We’ve always wanted to move down here.” And despite being from balmy Northland they don’t mind the winter cold. "We’ve got a really well insulated house. We just put on lots more layers and we’re fine. We’re even talking about bringing my mother down from Devonport.”PHOTO: The Wanaka App

LAURA WILLIAMSONTalk to Wanaka woodworker Simon King even for a short while, and you’re sure to learn something interesting. For example, did you know all good cabinets have a secret compartment? They are not always hard to find, but they are always tricky to open.Simon works out of his workshop on Ballantyne Road making a combination of domestic woodwork products which he sells at the markets in Wanaka and Queenstown: beautifully-crafted native beech bowls, stirrers, rolling pins, honey drippers and chopping boards - and bespoke furniture to order. He also teaches adult night classes over the course of which students learn the techniques to make a woodwork item, such as chair or a stool, to take home.Visiting his workshop, packed as it is with furniture, offcuts, machines, and tools hanging from every wall, all of it coated in wood-scented sawdust, it’s hard to believe he’s been working there full-time for less than a year.Until the start of this school year, Simon had been the Head of Design Technology at Mount Aspiring College for 11 years, as well as a teacher of Spatial and Product Design, Visual Art Design and Woodwork. He dropped to part time hours in 2015 to get his woodwork business off the ground, and planned to carry on into this year, but "things just got too busy.” He went into the woodwork business full-time part way through Term One, and he hasn’t stopped since.Simon grew up in Dunedin, then went straight from school to train to be a civil engineer at Canterbury University. He never studied woodworking, but instead learned as he went. "I started working with a friend who was a beekeeper at Carey's Bay near Dunedin, and used to help him make beekeeping equipment. Later, when my father retired, he decided he wanted to go to woodturning classes and he asked me if I wanted to come along. Soon, I was doing better work than my instructor and selling it, and Dad had given up.”To find artisans look in the Wanaka App Shopping sectionHe attributes his success to being both a quick learner with practical things, and to having a good eye for form. "I wasn’t trained to be a designer, but it came naturally to me. And I’m a visual learner, which helped,” he said. And while he didn’t take art classes, he was involved with photography while at university and was a member of the photographic society.Simon has worked as a woodworker once before, more than 20 years ago, where he said he earned a "precarious” living in Dunedin, sharing space and equipment with three other woodworkers. He got into teaching when he was asked by a friend who was a woodwork teacher to do some relieving ("in those days they were less fussy about whether you had qualifications”), and with a young family to help support including a seven-year-old son and another baby on the way, he went to teachers’ college. His daughter Eleanor was two weeks old when he graduated.He worked in a succession of relieving positions in Dunedin until his partner Jenny was offered a position by the New Zealand's International Aid and Development Agency teaching in Rarotonga. Simon ended up teaching design and woodwork there for two years. He was also involved in a project on Mauke, a two- by three-kilometre island in the Cook Islands. "There was a community of disabled kids there, and we built a sheltered workshop where the mothers could come together and work while their children got looked after. I designed a lot jewellery for them to make out of shell and coconut to sell in Rarotonga, got them all the gear they need from New Zealand, including a drill press, and taught them how to use them. That was really rewarding.”Four years teaching in West Auckland followed, an experience he described as very "Outrageous Fortune”, before the job in Wanaka came up. He said he kept up the woodworking throughout his time as a teacher. "l was always doing a bit of this on the side, because I have a creative urge that needs to be fed,” he said. "Although teaching is creative in its own way, I still need to make something tangible.”These days, his paid work and his creative side are one. He said his passion is designing and making bespoke furniture. A recent example is a wine cabinet, square on one side, curved on the other, its elements - cabinets, shelves, a wine rack - crafted in different types of wood with different colours, from dark, to light and to red-tinged, and seamlessly fitted together. He said the thinking behind its design came from a challenge he used to give his own students, asking them to identify what made a design a distinctly New Zealand one, especially in a modern environment where young designers can go online to look at, and be influenced by, thousands of international styles. "My cabinet adopts the colours of the marae, red and black, while the tongue and groove panelling is a nod to New Zealand’s colonial past."The rest is just my imagination. The form, the curves, the way the elements are proportioned, that’s me.”  His work really does stand out, and Simon said he has two distinctive skills that are not necessarily common in modern woodwork. One is inlay work and the other is steam bending, which allows him to use one piece of work to make elements like curved legs for stools and chairs and rockers. "Once you have that technique at your fingertips, it opens up design possibilities,” he said.As for the wine cabinet, yes it does have a secret compartment, and it takes a while to figure out how to open it.PHOTO: Wanaka App

Lake Hawea singer songwriter Anna van Riel is celebrating more than just Christmas as 2016 comes to an end. The local muso has taken home ‘Best Children’s Song’ for her song and album title track ‘Cooking Up a Song’ at the annual Australian Songwriters Association music awards held last Wednesday (December 14) in Sydney.Anna not only gained first place among hundreds of entries in the children’s music category, she was the second person in the 36-year history of the competition to gain a perfect score. "They called me and announced that I literally could not have scored any higher. I was fairly blown away to learn this as over 3,000 overall artists enter in various categories each year and the calibre of songwriting is excellent,” Anna said.Anna performed her interactive children’s song to an audience of more than 400 at Sydney’s Orion Theatre on Wednesday evening.‘Cooking up a Song’, both the album and track of the same title, were also nominated Best Children’s Song and Best Children’s Album at this years NZ Children’s Music Awards. And 2017 is looking to be a busy year for Anna. She has also been successful in gaining a Creative NZ grant to perform a series of concerts for her Off the Beaten Track tour of remote schools in the deep South, and later on the West Coast, hosted by WESTReap and funded by Westland Creative Communities. "I remember when musicians and theatre groups came through our school when I was a child. It used to blow my mind and leave me so excited and inspired. I want to be that for kids who are off the beaten track and are missing out,” Anna said."I have two small children and am part of a flourishing community, full of families with small kids. It makes sense that I create songs for our tamariki right now and be part of this growing culture of nurturing the growth of great music for little people. I don’t mind what kind of music I’m making, so long as I get to be creative.”PHOTO: Supplied