Tēnā tātou katoa e te whānau, e mihi ana mō tēnei tau hou Pākehā 2023.
On behalf of the Ongare Board of Trustees, we hope you all had a safe and restful Christmas and New Year and that you are staying safe as we experience the extreme weather events this past week.
2022 saw many changes at Ongare as we undertook a commitment to begin actioning some of the previous strategic decisions that we had made.
We began by looking back in memorium to acknowledge our late Chair Ron Papuni and his wife Nancy. Ron was the first Trust Chair and Orchard Manager of Ongare following the return of the whenua in 1980.
Sometime afterwards Ron and Nancy came to live at Ongare in the old whare. They remained happily on the whenua for some decades before retiring in recent years and settling in Katikati township.
Ron along with uncle Kiri Hall (Lynn Gillespie’s dad) also put up their own homes as collateral to resource Ongare. This happened during lean and tough times for our inaugural Board back in the 1980’s and 90’s, unbeknown to anyone.
It isn’t well known however Ron also endured hardships as he stewarded Ongare through the PSA epidemic of the 2010’s. Neighbouring orchardists were trying to pressure Ron to remove our plants which were still in good health. This lead to tensions and ongoing strained relationships.
In 2022 we reviewed our existing strategic plan and the uplift plan we formulated through the Whenua Advisory Service series of wānanga, delivered for us by Joel and Awhina Ngatūere of Māoriworks in 2021.
We wanted to start by acknowledging all the sacrifice and service that Ron put into Ongare during his tenure as Inaugural Chair and Orchard Manager.
As a result Ongare created the inaugural Ron Papuni award for excellence by a Māori student in horticulture for year 13 at Katikati College and for year 12 at Mount Maunganui College, awarded in year 13, with both recipients receiving a $1000 cash award each.
We hope that these awards will provide inspiration for tauira Māori to aim high and consider a pathway for a career in horticulture in Ron’s name.
We aim to start sharing more of the chapters that make up the Ongare story throughout 2023 and look forward to adding to the story with all of you our whānau.
