The first Matariki weekend was a roaring success with lots of community participation and the bad weather staying away for most of the weekend.
The Old School was packed out at their winter solstice matariki celebration on Saturday night and then on Sunday evening about 500 people came along to the Matariki ki Whaingaroa Community Event on Bow St. The crowd spilled out across the road after it was closed at 4pm and were treated to music, storytelling and fire dancing for entertainment as well as hearing from Kaumatua Sean Ellison about the purpose of Matariki. Organisers are already talking about building on this first successful event.
Dr Fiona Bolden from The New Zealand Rural General Practice Network is calling for more support for rural medical practices saying the offer of a 3% increase in general practice funding is well short of what’s required.
She added that after years of inadequate funding, rural practices are facing critical workforce shortages, burn out, and a lack of pay parity across both medical and nursing teams.
Still in that space the Rural Health Careers Promotion Programme is in town this week with a group of tertiary students visiting Raglan Area School on Wednesday with the aim of inspiring rural school pupils to pursue a career in rural health.
And lastly the trend of pop up stores has arrived in Te Uku with an advertisement doing the rounds for a space that can be booked on a weekly or fortnightly basis.
That is the Raglan news for Monday 27th June 2022.