Life + Style - 8 January 2021

8 January, 2021

THE WEEKEND

Villains of the rock scene See page 2

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life+style The Weekend Sun °˝8˜ August, January,°˛˝˙ °˛°˝ 2021

Surf and turf Surfing for Farmers On a Thursday evening in Mount Maunganui, a group of 20 or more surfers head into Shark Alley hoping to catch a wave.

After a decent paddle and a few wipeouts, it’s back on dry land for a mean feed and a yarn by the barbecue.

A typical sight in this beachy suburb. But what unites this group of surfers is their work in an occupational field that forms part of Aotearoa’s economic backbone. Farming and agriculture.

Surfing for Farmers is the brainchild of Gisborne native Stephen Thomson. Inspired by the documentary ‘Resurface’, detailing an Iraq war veteran’s recovery from depression through surfing.

Thomson wondered if a similar method could have a positive impact on New Zealand’s farming community.

After dealing with farmers regularly through his work on the East Coast, Thomson was well aware of alarming statistics regarding mental health in this often overlooked community.

Thomson decided that “the ambulance is at the bottom of the cliff ” and it was time to take action.

He started with sessions in Gisborne back in the summer of 2018.

Three summers later and Surfing for Farmers has spread to 16 locations across the country.

In the Bay of Plenty, farmers and growers are well covered. Surfing for Farmers run sessions along the coast, at Waihi Beach, Ohope, and Mount Maunganui.

The sessions at the Mount are run by head coaches Geoff Waite and Sarah Hickey, both of whom work at Surfing for Farmers sponsors Ballance AgriNutrients and Zespri International respectively.

Surfboards and wetsuits are provided by Andy Collins from Mount Surfing Academy. His payment is stunning views of the ocean surging between Motuotau and Moturiki, the two islands which flank Shark Alley.

For the coaches, it is equally rewarding.

“I love being in the water and I love surfing,” said Waite, a commercial analyst at Ballance.

“It’s rewarding when you see people getting up for the first time and really enjoying themselves.”

Debbie Puchner, a Kiwifruit grower from Pukehina, is grateful for the coaching on offer.

“I never thought I would actually be able to get on a surfboard.

“It is really helpful to have people out there to help you on the board or to tell you which wave to catch.

That also gives you encouragement to give it a go.”

Debbie loves the ‘personal challenge’, but also appreciates the bringing together of an often isolated community.

“Absolutely. There are a few families from

Pongakawa and kids who went to school together so it is quite good to reconnect.”

Waite also believes this connection is one of the reasons why Surfing for Farmers is so successful.

“In a lot of the smaller towns, the rugby club is shutting down, the small towns are getting smaller. So that ability to connect with people is getting harder.”

For Dayna Rowe, a dairy farmer from Pongakawa, farming and surfing is a family affair. She is due to take over the family farm next season but at present, her father, Grant, is the boss.

Getting out on the board with her dad helps to break up that working relationship.

“Me and my dad love being out on the water and it’s a really cool opportunity to get off the farm.”

“We cheer for each other when we get up and have a good laugh when we fall down. It’s cool because he’s my boss as well. It’s nice to just have a relaxed relationship and environment.”

The surf presents escapism from a rewarding but often consuming line of work, regardless of who your boss is. The worries of a hard-working day are put aside when trying to tame the sea.

It’s something head coach Geoff believes is of paramount importance.

“Dealing with farmers and hearing a lot about what’s going on through the work that I do there’s a lot of pressure on farmers at the moment.

“There’s a lot of information and things that help as far as mental health goes but this actually gives them something to do.”

Dayna clearly agrees.

“Surfing is something that you have to focus on and think about so you fully figure it out,” Dayna explains.

“Anything that’s happening on the farm, which can be quite hard because we are living there, working there, it’s always there. So it’s a nice couple of hours to just think about something else.”

Getting out on the water is keeping this community talking and providing a buffer for a difficult work/ life balancing act. In the process, Surfing for Farmers is helping the mind, body, and souls of an essential workforce in the Bay of Plenty region.

The sessions took a break for Christmas but nothing will stop these farmers from getting back out in the line-up in 2021, Dayna and her old man included.

“We will definitely be back in the new year.”

The camaraderie of a shared goal, socialising with like-minded people, and a brief vocational vacation.

It’s a serotonin rush in the sets.

The smiling salty faces on show in the Mount made that clear.

To learn more about Surfing for Farmers you can find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/ Mathew Nash surfingforfarmers/.

˜ January, °˛°˝

Villains of the rock scene The band is back on the road “We are the champions, my friends “And we’ll keep on fighting ‘til the end “We are the champions “We are the champions.”

The lyrics to the iconic Queen song are fitting not only for New Zealand’s fight against Covid-19 but also the live music scene.

Aotearoa is one of the only places in the world able to hold unrestricted live gigs, and for the band Villainy, it means they can do their first nationwide tour in close to 18 months.

Villiany singer and guitarist Neill Fraser grew up listening to Queen’s Greatest Hits II album, Guns and Roses and Michael Jackson – these stalwarts fostered his love of music and the desire to perform.

“The allure of being able to perform and have an impact on people in that way, it’s really magical and really unique.”

The 34-year-old grew up during the 80s and 90s.

This meant if people wanted a sound experience they had to go to a show and buy the record or CD, he says.

“I think that’s still really true today. We love playing live and being on stage in front of real people is a hundred times or a thousand times more rewarding than doing it on a live stream or something.”

Live music has shaped his artistry, attending numerous Big Day Out festivals and The Prodigy gigs made him realise music “could have an edge and be dangerous”.

When Neill was seven his family inherited a piano and as children do, he decided he needed to play it and demanded lessons.

The Tauranga born musician picked up a guitar at age 15 after watching a Smashing Pumpkins concert on TV. He says their 90s music is the reason he wanted to play rock.

Villainy formed in 2010 and are one of New Zealand’s prominent rock bands having won a NZ music award for Best Rock Album/Artist three times.

Like all of us, the band’s four members paid their dues in 2020 with gigs and a tour being cancelled but it hasn’t all been bad.

They spent their time during the first lockdown making content remotely by doing acoustic versions of their songs, recording their individual parts then mixing them together over the internet “Thankfully music is something that you can do anywhere, anytime, whether you’re by yourself or with a group of people.”

Neill says they tried to use their time during lockdown wisely and there should be new music that comes out of it, that they’ll take to the studio.

Villainy’s summer tour will feature music from the EP ‘Beggar’ they put out in March 2020, with promises to put all of their pent up energy into the shows.

“We’re going to bring a big production, bring a rock show that people can get involved in and get loose and have a good night.”

They are playing at Totara Street on February 20.

Alisha Evans

life+style The Weekend Sun ˆ

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January,°˛˝˙ °˛°˝ 2021 life+style The Weekend Sun °˝8˜ August,

Tauranga gave me my dream Zoe Kennedy says goodbye As Zoe Kennedy reflects back on her life in Tauranga, she says something extraordinary.

Zoe Kennedy with Warren Atkinson.

“Tauranga gave me my dream.”

She pauses and smiles.

About a week before Christmas, this stalwart and pillar of local theatre for half a century left her Tauranga home with her son Greg to move to Greymouth where her daughter Cathy lives.

Cathy, who previously had a plant nursery business in Tauranga settled on the West Coast of the South Island after searching for a climate that had less heat and humidity in which to grow her plants.

“That’s where my ancestors settled in New Zealand when they came out in 1861 after the tin mines in Devon Cornwall closed down,” says Zoe. Zoe has been involved in more than 40 theatre productions in Tauranga over the last 50 years in some form or other, either acting, working backstage, directing, working front of house, or helping her close friend Pat Roser with theatre restaurant.

It seems pure luck that she ended up carving out her life in Tauranga.

“I was an Auckland girl. I’d gone overseas to do my big OE as you did in those days, and I had a letter from a friend back in New Zealand who was concerned for my mum.

“I went straight away to book, to see if there was a cancellation on a ship so I could come home. I was very lucky. I got one on the Southern Cross, and immediately wrote to a friend back home asking ‘can you tell me please what’s been happening, I’ve booked on a ship and I’ve got to confirm it by such and such a date’. Of course in those days you didn’t phone anybody because it was too darn expensive so you wrote letters. I didn’t hear back by the time that I was due to confirm my booking so I confirmed it and then I was committed.”

She had posted the confirmation during her lunch hour, standing hesitantly in front of the post box.

“I remember walking up and down in front of this box thinking ‘shall I post it, shall I post it?’ and a voice in my head said ‘POST IT!’ When I got home there was a letter from my friend saying ‘don’t be ridiculous, your mother is alright’. But I was then committed.”

The ship sailed with Zoe on board, and amongst a group of Australians and Kiwis she met her future husband Ray. “He was one of the noisy Aussies. We were just good friends, and I think we walked the deck

together on the last night out from Wellington. We exchanged addresses and I never thought another thing about it.”

Ray however must have thought more about it, visiting Zoe in Auckland, with the pair eventually marrying and moving to Tauranga.

“He’d been working here six weeks. Mum asked him where would he like to live, and he said ‘well I don’t like Auckland much’, and my mum said ‘well when you were away did you see a place you liked’ and he said ‘yes Tauranga’.”

They both landed jobs in Tauranga, and grew their life amongst a growing number of friends.

“I was very lucky in the people I met. I had always been in theatre in Auckland but Ray had never had anything to do with theatre. I started to get the itch but every time I got the itch I got pregnant so I gave that up for two or three years.”

She and Ray had three children, and Zoe drew them all into the magical world of theatre at then Tauranga’s Repertory Theatre, now 16th Ave Theatre, with Ray applying his practical skills to helping build sets, while Zoe took on numerous roles including president. Ray passed away about ten years ago.

The first play Zoe auditioned for was ‘Verdict’.

“That’s where I met Zoe in 1969,” says Richard Carey. “Zoe is a very good actress, there’s no two ways about it. She could more than hold her own with any professional actress in this country.”

Zoe was also involved in plays with Gateway Players, a professional theatre company in Tauranga.

“One that I’ll always remember is ‘The Glass Menagerie’,” says Richard.

“I’ve seen Joanne Woodward and Katharine Hepburn play that part in films but Zoe was just completely outstanding in it, all beautifully done with a southern American accent. It was an absolutely stunning play.

“Zoe’s talent is immense and I have the greatest respect for her.”

Friend, director and also 16th Ave Theatre pastpresident Julie Lankshear says that anything Zoe did for theatre she did 100 per cent.

“She was always a perfectionist,” says Julie.

“It’s sad to see her leave. She’s been with us through the hard times and through the good times. Her contribution is huge – she’s directed plays, acted in plays, been on the committee. When we were doing theatre restaurant, she and Pat Roser made all the three-course meals.

“I have loved my life in Tauranga,” says Zoe. “Tauranga gave me my dream.”

Rosalie Liddle Crawford

Ëœ January, 8 °˛°Ë?°˛Ë?Ë™ 2021 °Ë? August,

life+style The Weekend Sun Ë™

The secret lives of eels Unlocking some of the mysteries of migration patterns It’s 10pm and NIWA trucks are driving along Thornton beach towards the Rangitaiki river mouth, a 10 minute drive West of Whakatane.

At 10:30pm Waikato university masters student, Siobhan Nuri will drop her nets to start collecting glass eels and plans to be at the river mouth until 3.30am.

She’s helped by Eddie Bowman an environmental monitoring technician from NIWA. Her father, Niwa Nuri and sister, SinÊad Nuri.

The job has to be done at night because that’s when the eels enter the river mouth.

Glass eels are juvenile forms of tuna (eel) that begin life in deep ocean tranches in the sub-tropical PaciďŹ c.

The eels then drift with ocean currents, eventually reaching freshwater in New Zealand.

Glass eels do not migrate to the same river or stream that their parents come from. Eddie says. “That would be a big ask.�

If it was the case the eels would form genetically distinct groups in freshwater and there is no DNA evidence to support this.

The eels are 5.5-6.5cm long and are known as glass eels because of their transparent bodies.

Once the eels reach fresh water they take days to adjust before moving further upstream. One of the changes made by the eels is that they stop becoming transparent and start to turn darker as they change from a glass eel to an elver.

Siobhan is attempting to unlock some of the mysteries of the shortďŹ n and longďŹ n eel’s migration patterns. “We’re trying to ďŹ gure out when the length of migration is and how different environmental variables can effect migration.â€?

Siobhan and her team put on waders, life jackets and high-vis vests. They ick on head torches and set nets by the river bank. Waders are not only a good way to stay dry but a practical way to keep warm during the wee hours of the morning.

The team is set up for a long night. On the back of one of the NIWA utes lies a spread of coffee, tea and snacks to see the researches through the night.

There is limited research done on glass eels and the research that has been done is predominantly in the South Island. Siobhan is hoping to come up with updated information that’s relevant to the Bay of Plenty and North Island.

Siobhan says the local response to the research has been amazing, “every week we get a whole lot of tangata whenua helping us out.�

Siobhan has had schools come visit and she’s chatted to classrooms in the local area about the eels. Classrooms

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have also run projects focused on tuna inspired from the work her and NIWA have done.

Siobhan took over research started by NIWA last year.

She’s been going since June and will ďŹ nish up next month in December.

Next year Siobhan is hoping to pass on the project to someone else, “we’re hoping to get someone from the iwi to continue the work.�

Siobhan says tuna hold cultural signiďŹ cance to the iwi, as well as being a valuable food source.

Tuna are a taonga for Maori and have over 100 different names for freshwater eels, to describe differences in colour and size.

Many of the glass eels’ secrets hide in its ear bones (otoliths). “The ear bones are kind of like tree rings.�

Glass eels grow a ring in its ear bone every day and larger, older eels, grow a ring every-year.

Siobhan says the rings provide information on the length of migration and where the eels have been on their migration journey.

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Each month 50 longďŹ n and 50 shortďŹ n eels are used for the research.

Catching the eels is not always easy though.

Siobhan has done the sampling in all conditions. “We’ve sampled in heavy rain, hail, big surf, big river ow‌ there was a sandstorm one night so we couldn’t keep our eyes open.â€?

She has also caught variable amounts of eels.

Tonight she only caught 16, a sign that the migration season is in its tail end but in August she caught 8000.

Another memorable night was in June, when the ďŹ rst eels should have just started to enter New Zealand’s rivers. “The literature says that we shouldn’t catch any but we caught heaps.â€?

The peak migration of the eels is meant to be around October, September and November. She says the fact that lots of eels were caught in June is evidence of lack of research done in the area.

She says because of the big catches early in the season, research Caleb Fotheringham will begin earlier next year.

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January,°˛˝˙ °˛°˝ 2021 life+style The Weekend Sun °˝8˜August,

The Great NZ Arts Journey Recently I was asked to step in at short notice and speak for three minutes on creativity.

During October and November, the Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi in partnership with Creative NZ and The Chartwell Trust hit the road around NZ to gather stories from a diverse range of speakers on the transformational impact the arts and creativity have on New Zealanders’ everyday lives.

They covered ten towns over four weeks, generating 60 stories. Tauranga was the second-to-last stop with NZ tenor Simon O’Neill and singer Ria Hall amongst our group of speakers.

I thought how I could talk about the early, shy years, escaping into my imagination daydream world that led to creating art, music and stories.

How getting lost in the solitary pursuit of hours of disciplined piano practising also had the flip side of parents pushing me out to perform in front of crowds. The yin and the yang of being a piano playing introvert.

I’ve run two galleries, won two music prizes, managed a city arts festival, coordinated groups of artists, have paintings in collections here in NZ and overseas, played piano alone at weddings and funerals and with others in jazz and heavy metal bands. I’ve accompanied opera singers, played piano at the International Arts Festival as well as playing on the beach.

In all this, I’ve been happy to play for myself alone, but also found my own ‘tribe’ of musicians, artists, poets, film makers – those people who seem to see

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things from a similar perspective as me, which has often felt “a little bit different”.

Wherever I am though, more than wanting to paint or compose music, I find I’m keen to tell the stories of the artists around me, why they do what they do, how their thoughts evolve into something the rest of us call ‘art’.

And it’s important that it’s called art, because it gives them permission to create more and articulate the feelings and emotions they have. We don’t know if it will become great art. We shouldn’t care about that. Or whether it holds value in a tangible way that others recognise.

What I do know is that cities need someone to tell the stories of their artists, of their arts and culture, to be a commentator while artists journey along. It’s important to me when telling someone else’s story to be mindful that their story is their treasure. I’m holding it, and then I’m passing it back, and I’m passing it on as I retell it for them.

Over the last four years writing for The Weekend Sun I’ve found myself commentating on our local arts community. What a privilege.

There’s been an explosion of creativity from comedy, music, right across the arts sector thanks to organisations like The Incubator.

It’s important to articulate the at-first gradual, and now sharply focusing character of a city for a number of reasons.

As well as helping forge our identity as a vibrant, bursting-at-the-seams creative place, it gives permission for the more not-as-yet visually creative people to start expressing themselves.

Ëœ January, 8 °˛°Ë?°˛Ë?Ë™ 2021 °Ë? August,

life+style The Weekend Sun 7

He Waka Toi e Eke Noa Nei Tatou

And it grows. We storytellers telling everyone that our city is a creative lot helps people recognise that “well yes we are� and then we start to believe that we are and we become that more and more in a cohesive collective fashion.

And the quiet introverts like myself start to ďŹ nd their tribe.

Media connects people that may not otherwise connect. It has an impact on what we believe about ourselves and our community.

There’s so much creativity being expressed in this community - from kapa haka, musical theatre, painting, pottery, carving - from the ephemeral to the permanent.

We can be uplifted and stirred by stories in our city.

The key is forming human connections and participating. A healthy city is a connected city.

Creativity connects us.

Let’s put the arts with business, tourism and economics for a change rather than just social services and volunteerism. It’s demeaning to not recognise the value of creativity.

Creative people are problem solvers, and often some of the best people to work as a team. Creatives can help the business arena expand because our brains are wired differently, because we don’t believe in the word ‘no’ nor the word ‘impossible’. We see beyond boundaries and ďŹ nd other ways to bypass insurmountable obstacles. We can effectively contribute to the economic growth of a city if we’re given permission to carve out and step into that space, telling our stories through ďŹ lm,

print, art and music.

For me, being creative is as natural and vital as breathing.

From age three I’ve had this awareness of something beyond myself, a greater creator who made me. The rest of my life has simply been me exploring and trying to reach out to touch that.

When inspiration strikes, it’s like your brain has become a large antenna picking up ideas and thoughts that could not have come from within ourselves.

When I’m alone and quiet and listening to that inner voice that’s also within me, I feel like there’s a creator looking at me like I’m just a pot on a potters wheel, and every crack in my life, every broken world experience I’ve had, every mistake and thoughtless moment I’ve had – that crack is where his light and creativity seem to shine through at its brightest.

Rosalie Liddle Crawford

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