Whiringa-ā-rangi / November 29, 2025
Poetry on the headland: Meshes of the Afternoon
Saturday, 6 December, 5 – 6.30 pm
You are invited to a relaxed gathering on the first Saturday of each month from December until May at the Alice Krebs Lodge on Te Raekaihau.
A chance to enjoy summer on the headland, to share poems and short extracts of environmental writing from authors from Aotearoa and around the world. Sessions are informal, small, open to all and free of charge.
The loose theme for December is “The Moon” with passages and poems for the moon particularly welcome. Your own writing is welcome too.
Feel free to bring snacks, and if the weather is poor we can meet at a house on Hungerford Road. For more information and a contact number if the weather is dubious go to the Meshes of the Afternoon website.
The next get together will be Saturday 3 January, and as there won’t be a newsletter before then, make a note of it now and check the website for the next theme.
A local distributed library
Do you have books you love sitting on your shelves that you would be happy to let others read? Inventaire is an open source book-sharing platform that turns personal book collections into an interconnected local distributed library.
The Inventaire project is underpinned by Wikidata and has a strong ethical foundation. The platform has a firm commitment to never sell personal data.
Locals have created a dedicated group – Haewai Community Bookshare – so that you can share with friends or not quite perfect strangers and make some great new connections (and maybe even new friends!) while you are about it.
Joining is fairly simple: create an account on Inventaire, and you can add your own books by searching for them, using your webcam to scan a book’s barcode, or entering the ISBN number. Then join the Haewai Community Bookshare Group rather than choosing the Public or Friends options.
The collection online is already rich, even though there are only a few members. Every book added strengthens and diversifies the collective library, and keeps stories, poems, and knowledge circulating, rather than gathering dust on the bookshelf.
Climate Adaptation Workshop follow-up
Seventeen locals attended the workshop we had as part of the WCC Climate Adaptation Pilot Programme. The format was mostly sharing thoughts around large maps of the area. There were lots of good stories, and surprisingly wind was as much a concern as the flooding, landslips and coastal inundation the programme is mainly dealing with.
The WCC team also attended the school fair and talked to over 60 more people. But if you have missed out so far, WCC have some more ways for you to share your thoughts and insights on how our community can respond to climate disruption, so that they can build an understanding of local issues, values, and opportunities for Climate Adaptation. There are three main ways to share your perspectives online:
- Climate values and vulnerabilities survey;
- Mapping the treasures in your area;
- Entering a children’s visioning competition.
Wild Spring Lunch
We had another lovely afternoon meal in the hall for our Seeds-to-Feeds Wild Spring Lunch to kick off the Seeds-to-Feeds season. Over the summer we will be growing vegetables towards a dinner in late February. We will let you know more closer to the time.
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