So……..we’ve not been having a rest, I can assure you! We have been taking some time to take care of things at home and also to nourish ourselves over the winter since we owned the home block and could begin to relax a little…… bringing in new settlers takes a lot of energy and we are just now gearing up for a big summer… talking to any new folks and settling several new families.

We held a hui at the local Marumaru Hall a couple of weekends ago, for existing settlers, some of whom are here already and some of whom were on skype around the world. The purpose of the hui was to update ourselves and renew and expand our understandings around the legal shapes we have had set up by the Kotare Community Land Trust, including the Kotare Village Commons  which will be the organisation (business.. co operative??) that does most of the development here. Another part of the purpose was to communicate to all about the building teams meeting, and it’s significance, with the Wairoa Council.

It seems we are very very lucky with our council who are totally behind us and will support us in every way they can, including sending us an intern who is an engineer to support us make progress.

1. As you will see in the Generic House Designing Begins Blog Post we are now making serious design progress and this will be a real focus and major feature of our work over the next few years as we define what local, low cost, and appropriate means to us as a village.  We are all very, very excited about our building project and I’m sure you will be too as you keep in touch with our progress.

We will be defining the appropriate technology in our homes this Summer during the Koanga Appropriate Technology Internship so this could also be an opportunity for you to join us and do some serious learning.

We also used this time to get to know each other better and practice hosting events so that when we host our first ‘settlers hui’ of the season we have some things at least well organized!! We are expecting large numbers of people at our ‘settlers’ hui’ over the summer, so be sure to book well in advance if you are also planning to come. It is critical you book through our on line process and do not just turn up. Please.

We are very lucky to have such a beautiful wooden local hall to meet in, and we took the opportunity to sleep there and eat there and have a good weekend getting to know each other.

It was attended by:

Kay and Bob, Tes, Geshem and Shaked, Caroline, Kyle and Soni, Leon and Janina, and Mel, all of whom are permanent here now…… as well as Taiamai, Franzi, Elanor and Frieda (Frieda is now crawling), our legal advisor for the Community Land trust, and several potential settlers plus other  existing settlers via skype from various countries:

Laura (England)
Jos and Melita (Nelson)
Michelle (West Coast Sth Island) 

Our first settlers hui of the summer is coming up  so that is where our focus is heading now.