No rest for the Women’s Network

The dust has barely settled from La Fiesta No.14 and I am now in planning mode for our Winter Wonderfest.

Once again, the Women’s Network is partnering with Sarah at Space Studio & Gallery to bring you this winter warmer designed to lure you out of your hibernation.

Set to run over two weeks from August 12-26, the festival aims to deliver activities and events that enable us to connect, empower and inspire. This year is our eighth festival and several contributions have already been put forward based on the idea of celebrating women.

All are welcome to participate. Expressions of interest are now open so if you or anyone you know has some skills to share or showcase, a story to tell, or something social and fun that you’ve always dreamed of, drop me a line. The closing date to receive expressions of interest is May 31 so get your thinking hats on or a group of like minds together to submit something snazzy: womnet.whanganui@gmail.com

Following on from the success of our afternoon tea during La Fiesta for women who live alone, this month we launched our monthly meet-up called WOW — Women On Wednesday: connecting women who live alone, scheduled for the first Wednesday of every month. There are two times available, a 1.30pm meet-up at The Barracks, followed by an evening meet-up at the Women’s Network from 5.30pm.

There is a mailing list for the group so if you are a woman living alone who is keen on some social connection with other women, get in touch. There is a diverse spectrum of women in the group, ranging in age from 30s to 70-plus, from a variety of backgrounds and places. It is wonderful to see the connections that have already been made with women getting together for coffee, walks and bike rides, gardening and even some cinema outings. I am looking forward to seeing what else unfolds. It is amazing what we can achieve when we do it together.

Speaking of achievements, I couldn’t miss this opportunity to offer up my heartfelt thanks to Midweek master and community champion Paul Brooks who is setting sail on another adventure.

I have had the distinct pleasure in my nearly 20 years at the helm of the Women’s Network to work with some wonderful Midweek editors and writers. Paul has been there for about 15 of them and has seen me through the highs and lows of community work — thankfully there have been many more high points — and has always been available when I have needed to chat or simply to share what I reckon is a neat idea for a story. His encouragement of my writing in the form of this regular column to you all has been so affirming and personally meaningful to me. There have been times when I wonder why I do it, especially when I feel I need to tackle writing about some of the hard stuff, and Paul always steps in with sagacity and urges me on. He is probably one of the few people who has seen me when it’s tough and I am incredibly grateful to have him on my cheerleading team.

Working in the community relies on building relationships, cultivating them into meaningful ones, and that takes time and effort, Paul does this brilliantly. His easy-going interview style and genuine enthusiasm for hearing a good story — and listening to it too — is what makes Paul incomparable. I have witnessed many a nervous interviewee relax with ease in his company, with insightful questions that enable personal experiences to form their own unique human-interest story for us all to enjoy reading about.

Good news is so important in a time when mainstream newspapers deliver us the harsher realities on their front pages, not to mention the pages in between. Paul has been able to share some of his personal commentary and observations about the headline issues of the day in his Front Bit editorial and as a result has ended up with his own “special” following of commentators.

Being in the news or on the fringes of it isn’t for the faint-hearted. Thankfully, Paul has the heart of an ox and our community is all the better for it. The relationships, the stories, and the repository of our community’s social history remains, with many more stories yet to unfold. Who knows, some of it might even end up in a Brooks book. Whatever happens next, I will always be pretty darn happy that I got to be on this Midweek ride with Mister B.