Issue 73 - editorial

The people who make Mana

Tena ano tatou

It seems like only the other day that we were working on Mana 67 – the one with Kai Time cook Pete Peeti on the cover – but in fact its been a whole year. Our next cover girl – Bic Runga – went on to win the Album of the Year at the New Zealand Music Awards for her album Birds.

Kate and Iri Mato, the missionaries in Tanzania that we featured in Mana 71 have since received a number of donations from our readers.

Robert Hewitt, who remarkably survived four days adrift at sea earlier in the year, recently married his partner Rangi.

Maioro Barton the young wheelchair athlete was named Junior Sportsman of the year at the Tainui Sports Awards and won a sports scholarship from the Sport, Fitness and Recreation Industry Training Organisation at the National Maori Sports Awards.

Our cover girl for this issue, Airini Mason, is ranked fourth in the world in her class of surfers and was a finalist in the Junior Maori Sportswoman Award in this year’s Maori Sports Awards. That title was won by the diminutive young Ngapuhi golfer, Larissa Eruera.

These were just a few of the many, many people who made the magazine for us this year. This year has also seen a number of major changes in the South Pacific. The much-loved Te Arikinui – Dame Te Atairangikaahu passed away. So too did the King of Tonga – Taufa’ahau Tupou IV. Ngati Whaatua, the tangatawhenua of Tamaki Makaurau, lost their paramount chief, Sir Hugh Kawharu, around the same time.

Maoridom and particularly Maori of the eastern Bay of Plenty lost one of their greatest Pakeha supporters for three quarters of a century with the recent death of Sir Norman Perry. We pay tribute to him in this issue.

In this issue too we’ve tried to give you our regular features supported by some interesting summer reading; like a Patricia Grace short story from her latest collection, Small Holes in the Silence, as well as a couple of good traveller’s yarns.

And we asked one of Maoridom’s up and coming young academics to check out the Maori Party’s scorecard for its first year in Parliament.

In keeping with the season we’re out and about, with our surfer girls, our veteran waka builder Hec Busby, with a couple of young women who have a tourism business showing people around the Tamaki area, and an amazing young man who is building a digital image business to take on the world.

We’re pretty certain you’ll find something in Mana 73 to catch your imagination. ‘Nga mihi nui kia koutou katoa mo nga ra whakataa, mo te Kirihimete, me to tau hou.’

Naku na