Sergeant Te Reipa Morunga (right) speaking at the opening of the Tūrangi Safetea HQ, with Safe Tūrangi chairman and chief fire officer Tangonui Kingi at left. Photo / Laurilee McMichael
Is it a shop? Is it an office? Is it a tearoom?
Nope, it's none of those things. It's something totally new altogether - Tūrangi's new Safetea HQ.
Safetea HQ is open for anybody in the Tūrangi community to come in for a chat, for a cuppa, to ask for advice or to talk about your concerns.
It's a brand-new homegrown Tūrangi initiative to make the community a better place.
The name Safetea comes from the concept of providing an inviting space for a cup of tea at a community hub where everybody is welcome to come and share their concerns or ask for advice or support.
The new Safetea HQ occupies Shop 45 in the Tūrangi town centre, opposite Fresh'n Easy Supermarket and last Saturday it was officially opened, with kaumātua Jeffrey Bennett asking for blessings for the new Safetea HQ, for the mahi that would be done there and for the efforts being made for the Tūrangi community.
Safe Turangi chairman Tangonui Kingi said Safetea HQ had been established in the town centre in response to community concerns and to provide a platform for police and other community organisations to strengthen community partnerships.
The name "Safetea" derived from the concept of providing an inviting tea room space as the backdrop for community engagement and support, he said, and it would be a frontline place where people could make contact with local organisations.
Safetea HQ will initially be open from 10am to 2pm on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays but Tangonui said that over time Safe Tūrangi hoped to increase those hours to better meet the needs of the community.
"We're hoping that the community engage with the occupants of the office and come in to ask for advice and support and also just to talk about stuff."
Tangonui said the Safetea HQ concept was born out of a conversation between Tūrangi Police officer in charge Sergeant Te Reipa Morunga and Tūrangi community constable John Malpas and then was pitched to Tangonui to see whether the idea fitted with Safe Tūrangi's values.
As well as Safe Tūrangi and Police, other service partners in Safetea HQ include Neighbourhood Support, the recently-invigorated Tūrangi Community Patrols, Coastguard Tūrangi, Tūrangi Fire Brigade and sponsors Taupō District Council, the Tūrangi-Tongariro Community Board BayTrust, Lotteries Commission and Genesis Energy.
Tangonui acknowledged former Safe Tūrangi chairwoman Mary Smallman, who had held the position for more than 20 years and was now its patron, along with the five-person Safe Tūrangi committee, the Wharetoto Trust, which owned the building, Ngāti Tūrangitukua and Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Safe Tūrangi co-ordinator Christal Morrison, who had overseen the whole project from design to fitout.
Acting Taupō Police area commander Senior Sergeant Phil Edwards said the new Safetea HQ fitted into the police's goal of safe communities, partly through its location in the town centre where disorder and intimidation can be a problem.
"Can I encourage you all to use this place. I daresay it's a safe place for you to share what's going on in your community, or if the police station is too intimidating [to go to], this is a safe place.
"I'm very proud of the vision and the bravery to go ahead and give this a go."
Sergeant Te Reipa Morunga credited the idea for Safetea HQ to community constable John Malpas.
"We'd been wanting to do something like this for a while and members of the community in here had been talking very loud about what they needed and wanted."
He acknowledged the mahi that Tangonui and Christal had done to get the doors open.
"It's taken a long time, there's been lot of hoops to jump through but we're there and I'm excited about this for Tūrangi," Te Reipa said.
"There's a lot of unknowns and we're not sure how we're going to deal with it, but we'll do our best, my staff will do our best and the people in here will do their best.
"This hub is for our community and it's going to be great."
A two-year ban on taking the shellfish came into force today.