Raumati Railway Raising Money for Hospice – Kāpiti and Coast Independent

Benefiting Mary Potter Hospice

The Kapiti Miniture Railway: a community enterprise — The Kapiti Miniature Railway: a community enterprise

The Kapiti Miniature Railway in Raumati Beach’s Marine Gardens, raises money for good causes. This Sunday, March 13 from 10.00am to 4.00pm it will be fund raising for the Mary Potter Hospice. (MPH)

The weather forecast is promising: partly cloudy weather with a temperature range of 14 -24 C.

MPH will benefit from proceeds from the train rides and the Hospice will also have a central point for other fundraising.

Strategies for getting people to contribute

According to Senior Fundraiser for MPH, Phillip Harris: There will be a stall in Marine Gardens to engage with people and to fundraise. The engagement activity we will be running is a very simple one and will be great for kids.

The activity is creating a memory stone trail to remember someone special. (See details below.)

To entice people to engage with us, we will have sunscreen available for people to help themselves, balloons and lolly pops to give away, soft drinks for a donation and several publications to hand out. We will also have a raffle tickets to sell ($2 a ticket or 3 tickets for $5). Phillip Harris

The stone trail: remembering loved ones

For this activity the organisers will provide

flattish pebble type stones (palm size or smaller)
coloured permanent markers.

Stone trail If people can bring along their own, that would be great.

Step 1: Decorate stones with permanent markers, or paints. Write the name of the loved one you are remembering, or write a special word or draw heart or design of your choice.

Step 2: Lay the stone down as part of a memory stone trail to form a spiral as more stones are added.

Occupational therapist for MPH, Linda Miller. explains the purpose of the memory stone trail.

To honour and remember our loved ones in a creative and meaningful way.

By being involved in a commemorative activity that is interactive and relevant to hospice philosophy, the local community has the opportunity to remember loved ones in a therapeutic way and create a meaningful piece of art that connects them with the hospice.

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100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.