The Bay of Islands Special Olympics 4 x 25m relay team of Zadkeil Beazley-Tango (left), Tadiwanashe Nyakudu, Te Waipuki Tohu and Chris Newhouse.
The Bay of Islands Special Olympics 4 x 25m relay team of Zadkeil Beazley-Tango (left), Tadiwanashe Nyakudu, Te Waipuki Tohu and Chris Newhouse.
SUP160622NADChocolate cake
SUP16062022NADBOI special olympics team The Bay of Islands Special Olympics 4 x 25m relay team of Zadkeil Beazley-Tango (left), Tadiwanashe Nyakudu, Te Waipuki Tohu and Chris Newhouse
Grace takes the cake for charity
Grace Cadogan, a Year 10 student at Springbank School, decided to hold the Russell Ultimate CakeBake Competition and Auction to raise money for the R. Tucker Thompson Youth Trust.
Grace Cadogan, the Springbank School Year 10 student who raised more than $5500 in a cake baking competition to aid the R. Tucker Thompson Trust.
Covid lockdowns had hit the tourist market hard and the "Tucker" was unable to deliver as many day and evening sailing trips to support the youth voyages as would normally happen. The idea for the competition came from her mother.
"I couldn't think of any other fundraisers that would make the money I wanted to make to support the trust so that's how I came to have the cake baking competition," she said.
She aimed to raise $3000 through that, a Givealittle page and through several raffles in order to support two students on the youth sailing programme. So far she has raised over $5500, which will support three young people on board.
The competition sections were preschool (which could be a decorated biscuit), juniors, intermediate, senior adult and a category for any business to enter.
The most-entered category was the junior section (Years 1-6), which had about 12 cakes entered and overall there were 30 cakes entered with 15 cupcakes entered by preschoolers with, maybe, a little help from a parent.
A cutely styled teddy bear cake, one of the cakes in the cake baking competition held in Russell.
In terms of money collected, the most lucrative cake was a chocolate cake that sold for $200.
The event was held at Gables Restaurant on the waterfront and the judges were culled from various people in the Russell community.
Kohukohu Art Gallery prepares for Matariki exhibition
The Kohukohu Village Art Gallery is gathering together exhibits for its Pūanganua Matariki exhibition.
Called Whakapapa, titiro whakatuarā hei tirohanga whānui o te wao nei, the exhibition means to "look back for an overview of the forest".
Curator and member of the gallery design team, Heiwari Himiona Johnson, said a literal meaning of whakapapa is the laying out of things in their correct order.
"Māori apply it metaphorically to the tracing and interpretation of connections. Its common usage, something closer to the English term genealogy, is central in the way we understand our place in the world and the proper order of, and relationships between, people, places, things and the environment."
He said Māori also speak of "gazing backwards into the future", meaning the understanding of, and relationship with, the past (via whakapapa) which informs the approach to the present and the future.
Submissions must be at the gallery by 3pm on Sunday, June 19, and new works will be accepted in any medium. The exhibition opens on June 25 and closes on July 23.
The New Zealand Open Team Sailing National Championships were held at Dove's Bay during Queen's Birthday Weekend.
The event has sailors and volunteers travelling some distance to take part and the regatta has gone from strength to strength over the past five years.
The first two days have 45 round-robin races and there were tricky conditions due to the weather's unpredictability. The weekend's forecast stormy and wet conditions did not eventuate and some races did not meet the time requirements due to the light airs.
Secretary of the New Zealand Team Racing Club, Susan Corbett, said the final day had 6- knot winds and course changes were needed to keep everyone racing.
"In the early afternoon the race was abandoned
Some of the entrants in the New Zealand Open Team Sailing National Championships held at Dove's Bay over Queen's Birthday Weekend.
after only one race and a clear winner was evident from the round-robin series."
Winners were Kiwi Team Racing, comprising Liam Herbert, Maeve White, Sean Herbert, Imogen Herbert, Reuben Corbett and Grace Calnan.
Second place went to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron – Jordan Stevenson, Harry McMullen, Jack Bunce, Hugo Mc Mullen, George Angus and Amelia Angus.
Team Thievery took third place – Josh Edmonds, Cella Balemi, Harrison Carver, Courtney Mac Pherson, Erik Thomas and Kaitlyn Turner.
A feature of this year's event that was a first was an all-girls team that entered from Whangarei.
Special Swimming Olympics held
The Top of the North Island Special Olympics were held over two days in Whangarei last weekend.
Karen Markin, who trains the team from the Bay of Islands Special Olympics Swimming Club, said her team came away from the event with a plethora of medals.
"It was really impressive and I am so proud of them considering their training over the past two years has been very hit and miss with Covid-related issues."
First in the 4x25m freestyle relay was Te Waipuke Tohu, Zadkeil Beazley-Tango, Chris Newhouse and Radiwanashe Nyakyudu. They were all variously placed in the 50m freestyle and the 25m freestyle events.
The Special Olympics Swimming Club is a satellite of a similar club in Kaitaia. There, Sarasin Ben, Kelsey Heta, Lani Wallace and Denise Cameron train under the coach, Denise Pure.
All the athletes have qualified for the National Summer Games, which will be held in Hamilton in December. It was due to be held last December but, like most things because of Covid, was cancelled.
Yellowtail tournament is under way
The International Yellowtail Tournament for 2022 is under way. It started last Sunday and is earmarked to last the whole week. The tournament is in its 52nd year and is hosted by the Bay of Islands Swordfish Club in Russell.
There are 139 anglers competing this year. That includes 16 junior teams and 14 ladies teams and after a Covid-enforced hiatus period of two years, the Australians are back with seven teams competing from across the Tasman.
The International Yellowtail Tournament, hosted by the Bay of Islands Swordfish Club, is now in its 52nd year.
The Yellowtail tournament is one of the oldest fishing tournaments in the country, second only to the New Zealand Sport Fishing Council (NZSFC) Nationals. Most competitors return year after year and two years ago, the 50th anniversary of the tournament sold out in record time.
For the first day of the tournament there were lean pickings, thanks to the blustery weather and a rolling sea.
Jason Famila and David Chambers from the Whangaroa club hauled in the biggest yellowtails from the appropriately named boat El Pescador, and that boat also scored the most points for day one. The junior angler on day one was Hunta Graham who hoisted his catch from Escapade.
The tournament has the reputation for antics away from boats with pranks a regular feature - horses in hotel rooms, sharks in the swimming pool and blokes in wigs. They don't take themselves seriously.
The original tournament charter is a handwritten and illustrated parchment, which is still on display in the Russell clubrooms and was created by a group of Australian anglers visiting from the Sydney Game Fishing Club.
Monday was a lay day. Fishing started again in earnest on Tuesday and runs until Friday with prizegiving in the evening.
