By Dave Pooch
Following July 2023 Board Meeting
What’s been happening
We’ve got snow on Jones Ridge today and it looks calm. We had our AGM in July where we added two new board members and parted ways with two long-standing members. The “Who pays what” matrix, that we talked about in the last Kumanu, is complete. The issue of having only one caretaker on-site continues. We’re investigating “cancelled retreats” because we’ve had so many in the last year.
And we’re turning our mind to our 50th Anniversary in 2025. We need some people to take this on.
Also work on the new Teacher’s Cabin continues apace. The scaffolding is off, and work on the interior has begun. It’s beautiful.
Here is more detail.
What we are reckoning with
Annual General Meeting
The AGM was held at Wangapeka on Sunday 23 July. Cashy Yates (coordinator) and Tim Leyland (Secretary) stepped down. Dan Burgess-Milne and Dave Pooch stayed on. Michael Mackinnon of Raglan and Georgia Borwick who will soon be living at Wangapeka joined. Thank you all. The first meeting of the new board is likely to be a weekend retreat.
Who pays what
Brooke, our highly appreciated office caretaker who works from home raised question about the consistency of who pays what for accommodation and food while people are at Wangapeka. Cashy, Brooke and Tim, together with help from other board members put together a matrix for, on one side, different categories of people e.g course managers, retreatants and volunteers. On the other side is a list of occasions e.g. retreats, maintenance weekends and special events. After much consideration we now have a completed matrix. This will be part of the info pack sent out to course managers to help them plan. Members can request a copy of this matrix by emailing the secretary at secretary.wangapeka@gmail.com
Sole caretaker
Tracy, who is doing a great job, is our sole caretaker on site and Jacinta was sole caretaker before her. Frankly, this is too much for one person. While Simon has valuably stepped in to help with land caretaking two days a week, the upcoming spring growth will call for more hours on the land. Wisely, Tracy has stepped back from “trying to do everything”. As the we progressively improve tracks and beautify the property, so there are more opportunities for volunteers to take on land caretaking duties. People can (please) register their interest on the Wangapeka website.
Cancelled retreats
Eleven retreats have been cancelled over the previous twelve months. This has caused problems as it was not always possible to put on an alternative retreat at short notice. Anecdotally, this was because of illness, lack of registrations and other reasons. Karen, who reported this figure is going to analyse the reasons. Then the board can figure if there is a way to reduce cancellations e.g. help with marketing.
What we need help with
50th anniversary
Wangapeka will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2025. The nature of the celebration has scarcely been discussed. While that is still a long time away, the board is looking for an expression of interest from someone, even better, several people who are interested in giving some thought to what events or publications would be of interest.
Volunteers for land and building work
Finally, the Centre always needs people to help with the physical work of maintaining our beautiful land and buildings. We’ve decided to employ a builder to do some of the skilled maintenance work required, and Simon volunteers almost weekly to do many of the jobs formerly done by our land caretakers, but we could really do with additional help. Tracy Abbot(centrecaretaker.wangapeka@gmail.com) is the person to contact about this.
Contact List
Here is the contact list for the Wangapeka Board and office.