Korero Café and the Ranui Community Centre

After major renovations, the Ranui Community Centre and Korero Café reopened with a dawn blessing on Friday 29 January.  Local stalwart Buffie Mawhinney and her team have re-used timber and other materials pulled out of the old building in very creative ways for walls and  furnishings .  The Auckland Council, Henderson-Massey Community Board and Community Trusts have all […]

Vagina Monologues for V-Day

  The Vagina Monologues were written by Eve Ensler, based on interviews with many women, 20 years ago.  We went to a splendid performance by the Shape Shift Collective (students and recent graduates from Unitec’s Performing and Screen Arts degree and other programmes), directed by Unitec lecturer Alexandra Whitham,  at Te Pou Theatre.  It was a  fitting first […]

City of Joy

In the process of looking up V-Day  ( www.vday.org ) we discovered the amazing City of Joy and the V-World Farm, begun in DR Congo by Dr Denis Mukwege, Christine Schuler Deschryver  and Eve Ensler in 2011, with support from Unicef and many contributors world-wide,  to help women rape survivors in the DR Congo become community leaders – TURNING […]

And then a love story…

We went to the premiere of the film Carol, a lesbian love story based on an early Patricia Highsmith novel The Price of Salt, with some reservations, thinking it might be a Hollywood let-down.  But actually we loved it – all our group of eight very different women found it moving, and beautiful in its portrayal […]

Summer at Earthsong

    We’ve been enjoying a peaceful, gentle time at Earthsong over summer – no meetings, emails or cooking teams! – and delighting in homegrown summer vegies and fruit from the garden. We also appreciated a Christmas delivery of delicious citrus and early plums  from Alison and Steve at earthtalk. The sad event here has been […]

Mai Chen, MIXIT and The Girl from Niue Island

Mai Chen on Cultural Competence A fine article in the NZ Herald (18 January 2016) by Mai Chen celebrates New Zealand’s cultural diversity . She makes a strong case for us to become culturally competent, and a couple of video clips in her on-line article illustrate what this can mean, and how valuable and empowering it […]

Diversity in Dunedin…

We had a week in Dunedin last month – and managed to find all the ingredients of a fine holiday: catching up with family and friends, lesbian company, cultural activities, conservation projects, and a political visit. We stayed the first night with former Aucklander, Pleasance, in her hilltop villa, and joined a monthly dinner group of Dunedin lesbians.  Ann Charlotte, whom we met there, […]

A Fan for Flax..

We went to Okahu Bay Domain at Orakei for the final wananga of Te Ara Reo Maori which Tanya has been attending all year at Te Wananga o Aotearoa.  Musicians were a big part of the day, including Whirimako Black, Justin Kereama and Pikiteora Mura-Hita and others. Just as we were leaving we saw this number plate […]