2010 – Waipawa turns 150 years old.

So its time to reflect on the past and look forward to the future… and defiantly kick up our heels and celebrate!

There are quite a few things happening in 2010 and I’ll write down some of the things I know about down here and add to it as more details come to light.

Down below I’m going to write about some of the projects – or “Gifts to the Future” the 150th committee have been working on, and then below that will be a “Calendar of Events”

Gifts to the Future

Our town is turning 150!
And what is a birthday without presents?
In the past when our town turned a significant age it gifted itself and future generations with a gift.

When Waipawa turned 50 years old in 1910 the people of the town gifted the town hall – which was not just for their generation to enjoy, but future generations as well. The CHB District Council is currently in the process of getting funds for renovating and upgrading our beautiful town hall so it will last many more generations to come.

 

When Waipawa turn 100 years old, the gift to the town was our town swimming pool.

And now Waipawa is turning 150 years old, our committee feels that it is fitting that we carry on this tradition and for us to leave something that will be long lasting and meaningful for us now, and for generations to come.

 

 

Turning 150 is a time which will only happen once in our history and is an important milestone. It’s a time to remember our past and look to the future.
Our idea for our 150th Gift is to upgrade Nelly Jull Park, by building a Community stage ( in an old-fashioned Band Rotunda style) redeveloping the children’s playground, creating an area for older children and youth to hang out, putting in new picnic tables, seating, drinking fountains etc to make the park a more vibrant and alive place!

Nelly Jull Park

Nelly Jull Park was gifted to our town in 1935 and it quickly became the focal point in our town’s life. In the 1930’s Waipawa District High School in Waverly Street used its fields for Physical Education. Rose gardens and trees were planted, and the old playground equipment from the Domain was shifted down to the park to make the playground (much of that equipment is still there today)

Children’s Playground.

Some of the existing playground equipment is over 100 years old and in need of replacing.
Over the last eighteen months our committee has been frantically fundraising and getting sponsors for the playground from local businesses.
It is really exciting that we have reached our target for funds and the new playground will be up in a matter of weeks!
The new playground will be up before Christmas 2009 but will be officially gifted to the children of Waipawa at the “Picnic in the Park” February 13th 2010.
I can’t wait to see kids playing on it!

A Big Thanks to all the sponsors who supported this project.
Those people are:
Waipawa Butchery, Stephensons Transport, Jan Gosling, Sculptor – Positively Soneaged, Mr Apple NZ Ltd, Skinny Mulligan’s, Allen Motors Plus Ltd, New World Waipawa, S Jenkinson Dental Surgery, Michael Waite (partner McKay and Mackie Solicitors), CHB Motors Ltd, Farmers Transport,

Just look at the changes!

Nelly Jull Park Playground January 2008

Nelly Jull Park Playground October14, 2009

First the old playground equipment gets a bit of a spruce up...

Even the Old tractor looks new and colourful with its new coat of paint !

And then the building of the NEW playground begins....!

8.30am 24th November 2009

12.30pm 24th November 2009

4.30pm  24th November 2009

8.30am 25th November 2009

12.30pm 25th November 2009

4.30pm 25th November 2009

8.30 am 26th November 2009

The Building is finished! Now here comes the bark!

And the bark is spread...
And then...

(photos –  I haven’t taken these yet but they’re coming soon)

Here come the kids! Hooray!

Our playground is there now for kids to play on over the summer.
I hope everyone enjoys it.
But remember the Official Opening of our new playground is on February 13, 2010 followed by Picnic in the Park.
So come along and have some fun!

Nelly Jull Park Playground February 13, 2010
(photos to come… watch this space!)

And also a big thanks to the CHB District Council for their work in tidying up the gardens in Nelly Jull Park and replanting it with new roses and buxus hedges.
Here are some photos before and after, and you must admit it looks fantastic even after only being planted for a short time!

Before…

And After… (October2009)

And a little bit longer after – and a little bit of colour! (November 2009)

Just wait until next year. The roses will look great.
For those of you who are concerned about the roses in the round rose garden being planted where the band rotunda is going to be – don’t worry. The roses will flower and look great this year and some of next. And when we get the band rotunda built they will be transplanted to ring the perimeter of our beautiful rotunda.

Basketball area

We also felt that the older children and the youth don’t have a lot to do in our town. A few years back the CHB District Council built the Skate bowl down at Madge Hunter Park. Our Committee felt that a basketball area would compliment this… So… more fundraising and generous sponsors.

Now our Basketball court is in place. I know it isn’t quite 2010 – but who cares? Let’s just call it an early birthday present.

Our Basketball area opened on the 25th October 2009.Waipawa’s own “Country Market” opened for the first time on this date too down at Madge Hunter Park… and they’re going to be running every Sunday between 9 am and midday. So if you missed their first one, you can still come along and buy some beautiful fresh veges or other produce on another Sunday mornings (there was lots of yummy fresh asparagus there too – the most beautiful Russian Fudge you’ll ever taste!)

The Official Basketball court opening.

Halen of the Hawkes Bay Hawks shot a few hoops to open the court, and then he gave out lots of balls… and the kids had a go…

After that we had a Skateboarding competition on the adjacent skate park. There wasn’t a huge number of contestants, but they came along, had some fun, won some prizes, and amazed the spectators with their moves. – maybe we’ll do it again next year? (bigger and better)

Again… A Big Thanks to all the sponsors who supported the basketball area project.
Those people are:
Stephensons Transport, Infracon, Ashby’s Mitre 10, Camden Contractors.
These people kindly donated ALL the materials, equipment and time into this project to make it happen. Thanks Guys. You’re fantastic!

Waipawa’s 150th Mural

This project is not one of the Waipawa 150th Celebration Committee’s Gifts to the Future – but is a gift to the future regardless – as it is a gift that I hope we will all enjoy now and well into the future.

It was the idea of a new group in CHB “The Green Kiwi Trust”

The Green Kiwi Trust has lots of ideas up their sleeve and already this year has achieved quite a few. One of their recent projects has been the Waipawa community gardens (located in Waipawa School's grounds) which was ploughed up by draft horses pulling a plough, and planted in pumpkins and potatoes.

_{Photos of horses ploughing Waipawa's community gardens kindly provided by Warwick and Elizabeth Mather}

And another of their projects was planting out the hanging baskets that adorn Waipawa’s main street.
I have been asked to emphasize that the Green Kiwi Trust is not just a group concerned with things around Waipawa, but is a group working for the WHOLE of Central Hawkes Bay. So our town is not the sole recipient of all their hard work.

So we are really lucky that one of their ideas was to have a mural painted in recognition of Waipawa’s 150th birthday.
They found a really great spot in Waipawa – on the main street – which was (how do you say it?) It was a bit of a blank space. They asked the manager of our local New World whether they could put a mural there, he said ‘yes’ and the wheels were in motion to start this really special gift.

Then they approached Te Aute College and asked them to get some of their students to paint something that reflected the last 150 years of Waipawa to be a gift to our town for our up-coming celebrations.
The Te Aute boys went one better than that – because as we all know, there were people here well before Frederick Abbott started selling off the land to make the township Waipawa. So their mural reflects this.
I will do my best to write my interpretation of the mural (and I apologize if I miss anything out or don’t get it quite right – this is how I read the mural.)

The Mural has the Waipawa River running through it and the steep hills that rise up around it - as they are constant through time. These link the past to the present, and flows on into the future. Strong imagery using birds is used to help tell the story.

It begins in a time well before Europeans came to New Zealand. A time when the Moa grazed the swamps, and the Huia surveys his territory from the treetops.

The forest is thick and lush as a Tui sits in a tree, his song ringing through the tree-tops, and the river flows on.

The hawk circles the sky and a new dawn signals a beginning of a new time

The river flows on past a Maori village on the hill, and a fantail flitters from branch to branch.

The river flows on…  as the Pukeko searches for delicate roots to feast on.

White men arrive, and seeing the place next to the river is a good place to live, they build the first cottage. With the coming of new settlers new birds arrive from lands far away across the sea. A cheeky sparrow hops around the garden of ‘the Pines’.

The noisy miner birds herald the arrival of the first shops in town. The forest is felled and replaced by pasture. Sheep and cattle dot the hills where mighty trees once stood… and the river flows on...

Schools, banks and businesses flourish, as the magpie warbles outside the Theatre hoping to get an audience.

The river flows on, and so does time... The town changes, and a little yellow duck paddles down the river into our present day...

And still the river flows on…. What will our future bring?

So that is our mural... a gift from the Green Kiwi Trust, and the boys from Te Aute College.
Thank you for your fabulous gift.

 

Here are a few shots of the mural unveiling...

The mayor cutting the ribbon

The Band Rotunda/Community Stage.

Remember when we used to have Picnic in the Park … and we used a truck trailer as a stage?
Wouldn’t it be great to have a purpose built stage where we can have concerts and run other outdoor events any time we wanted?
Wouldn’t it be great to bring back part of our town’s past and make it part of our future? (Waipawa used to have a Band Rotunda which was used for weekly concerts around the turn of last century when the town’s park was the Domain – now called Don Allen Reserve)

A Band rotunda could be used for all sorts of things… like…
Picnic in the park, dance recitals, open-air drama, mini weekend concerts, school choir and band performances, kapa haka, storytellers, classical music, country music, rock, pop or hip-hop, carols by candlelight, and much more…
The possibilities are only limited by you imagination !

So our vision is that we build a community stage… together… as a community project.
Just imagine it… popping up where the rose garden is now… over a weekend or two. Popping up like a mushroom.

So far we have had heaps of help.

Designs drawn up by Max Chatfield of Axis design
We have had logs donated by Charlie Hutchinson.
Logs milled by Andy Watts
Timber stored at Stephenson’s Transport
Several Builders have offered their time and expertise to build it
David Isaacs has offered to do electrical work

If you want to help we’d love for you to turn up and help – You know the saying many hands make light work and all that. Plus making it ourselves makes it OURS.

But although we have had these donations of time and materials, there is still a lot more funds we need to actually make it happen. (for things like concrete, coloursteel roofing, steel poles and railings, nails, etc…)
We are hoping that we can raise the money over the next few months – hopefully in October-November we will reach our goal and then we can build it. So any financial contributions would be really appreciated.
If you want to donate some money towards this project you can by dropping it off at Stephensons or posting it to Waipawa 150 year Celebrations Inc, c/o PO Box 127, Waipawa.
And please turn up and support some of our Fundraising ventures because every little bit helps.

Just imagine the end next year - having all this hard work paid off and our Band Rotunda built. We’ll be able to turn up most weekends to concerts or dance recitals in our park, and maybe sing a few Christmas carols while standing around our band rotunda. It’ll be magic!

Calendar of Events

Saturday, February 13th

Probably the first and most significant day for our Birthday celebrations was on Saturday, February 13th… And it was Awesome!

On February 13th we started off with a Grand Parade which went down our main street and then headed off down Ruataniwha Street to Coronation Park.
Now in Waipawa we have a fairly grand tradition of parades. We might be a small town, but we do things with passion! As you can see from these photos of past parades

Our parade celebrating our 150th Birthday lived up to that proud tradition of parades in Waipawa – and it was FANTASTIC!
I must admit that our committee did get a little worried about it for a while, leading up to the parade – You see, we had such a large response to people wanting to be in the parade, we were worried that there would be no one left to watch it… But we needn’t have worried… We had a HUGE Parade… AND THOUSANDS  of people turned out to watched it.

Some people really got in the spirit of things by dressing in period costume to come and watch the parade.

There was the far off olden days...

And not so old.

And Murray, our town’s butcher (and his fellow butchers at his shop) all dressed up as good old-fashioned butchers. You could almost believe you were back a hundred years ago or more.

Anyway… back to the Parade.
It took a huge amount of organization… and there were people, cars, trucks and horses everywhere!

And once everyone was in order the parade was off!
It was led by the boys of Te Aute college...

And followed by Pawa the Duck, who was transported very elegantly by a beautiful team of Clydesdale horses…

Oh Pawa wasn’t the only bird there… Further along in the parade Hawkeye made an appearance too!

Then… I can’t describe the whole parade, so I’ll let these pictures tell at least part of the story.

Click above images for a bigger version

As you can see it was absolutely amazing!

So the Parade passed down our main street and went on down to Coronation Park and once it arrived at the Park there was a good old fashioned Gala day. There were heaps of stalls of various sorts, bouncy castles...

and fun old fashioned games – such as egg and spoon races, sack races, tug of war etc. Which were really fun!

AND from time to time entertainment by the Te Aute boys doing Kapa haka, and Julie Appleton-Seymour’s dancing girls, and of course the day would not be complete without a pipeband.

You might have thought that was enough fun for one day, but the fun didn’t stop there.
At 3 oclock Margaret Gray and myself took a group of about 25 people on a historic walk up Rose Street (and Winsdor Road – which is quite a steep walk). We visited four historic homes which the owners kindly let us walk through, and we talked about others along the way.

Of course if you missed the historic walk on the 13th February – don’t worry, the walks are taking place again on the 13th of March.

Then… in the evening we moved the celebrations down to Nelly Jull Park where Trish Giddons, our Mayor, officially opened our new playground (which is one of our gifts to the future), and the CHB Aero Club did a fly over.

It was great to see so many children playing in the playground. The new playground was overwhelmed with kids… and so was the newly maintained older equipment. It was really a sight to see!

And finally, to finish 13th February celebrations off we had a “Picnic in the Park” Concert.

Picnic in the Park is not a new thing to Waipawa as we have had several of these before. People came and spread their picnics out on the grass and they sat back and enjoyed the evening.
Local bands performed into the night on top of our highly sophisticated stage (a truck trailer kindly supplied by Stephenson’s Transport), kids ran around with glowsticks and, when it got dark enough that nobody could see, some got up and danced the night away.

All in all, it was a really great day  -  I can’t wait to the next town party!

Sunday, February 14th

It was a historic day Sunday 14th February 2010. It will go down in history books as being an event that has never happened before.
ALL our churches in town cancelled their own Sunday services, and came to worship down at Nelly Jull Park together. It was great to see all the churches celebrating together – and maybe celebrating their differences as well.
The truck trailer used as a stage the night before was brought into service again, and set up once more with sound equipment and a band.
Each church gave a brief history of their church in our town– which I thought was fantastic since we were celebrating 150 years of Waipawa – and it also a great coming together of the different faiths who worship here.

Saturday, February 13th and March 13th- Historic Houses walk.

Rose Street is one of Waipawa’s oldest streets, so it seems fitting to walk up Rose Street and enjoy some of the older houses there.
At the bottom of the hill in Rose Street is “The Pines” which is Waipawa’s oldest house built in 1858.

Walking on up the hill are the homes of the Julls (who owned the Union Brewery which was once located at the bottom of the hill),

and the Bibby’s.

And of course the house of the infamous Professor Moore.

There are several early homes along this street and guides will be at each house to take you around the grounds of the homes and tell you interesting little stories about the houses and the people who once lived there.

Tours will be starting at ……….oclock at…..
For more information ring Rosheen at the CHB Settlers Museum (06) 8577288

Saturday, March 27th – Mary Glover Bibby Painting Exhibition and Book Launch

Mary Glover Bibby was a prominent woman in Waipawa’s history. She came to New Zealand in the 1880’s and married James Bibby.
She was involved in the CWI, founded Plunket in Waipawa, and was heavily involved in the community, church, and temperance movement. She was also one of the first two women in Waipawa to vote.
As well as being so involved in her community, Mary had a large family and she painted.

A collection of her paintings will be on display in the Exhibition Hall of the CHB Settlers Museum. These paintings are of local scenes around Waipawa, the foothills of the Ruahines where the Bibbys still farm, and of Kairakau Beach.

Mary used to also teach Sunday school and to illustrate her lessons she often painted pictures of the stories she was telling.
Recently some of her paintings of the Tarore story were taken to the Bible Society and they decided to use these pictures, painted about 80 years ago, to create a children’s picture book.

Well known Author, Joy Cowley, was asked to write the words to go with the story and in September 2009 the Tarore Story was launched in Matamata.

We are lucky that Joy Cowley has agreed to come here to Waipawa on March 27th to have a Waipawa Launch of the book, which will coincide with the Mary Glover Bibby painting exhibition.

The exact programme of the day has not yet been finalized, but when it has I’ll add details below.

There are lots of events planned throughout the year – and as I get more details of them I’ll post them here.