Moana | Ōpōtiki, Bay of Plenty

“I guess sometimes I can see the mean side of people, especially when it comes to alcohol. People can be very pedantic about such civil, trivial things that in the big scheme of things, they’re not really that important.

I’ve never worked in an RSA club before. I’ve been in corporate finance, so working for this club, it’s become a bit of a mission really, just to keep the door open. Covid-19, when that came long, we were sort of thinking, we were going to have to shut the door. And it’s just this drive of looking at new ways of trying to generate revenue, other than the club’s core business. The community has been really good, and our little community within the RSA. Some days you have to have really thick skin and just ignore all the negatives. We have a lot of negative things being said, that all of the RSAs are closing down. But there’s just this drive, and probably because of the people that are here, because it’s a broad spectrum of people. You’ve got Māori. You’ve got Pākehā. You’ve got young. You’ve got old, and it’s just digging right down and learning to be patient, and kind to others. 

One of my plans is I’m planning on making this a polling booth. So, I’ve gone to the Electoral Office, and they’ve come in and they’ve just got the same enthusiasm. They’ve got the same enthusiasm to see this thrive, I suppose. I had a woman come in, who’s also part of the Electoral Office, and she’s offered me the job of managing it especially when it’s here. 

The RSA, we decided to just have an opening three days a week, because that’s all we can afford. But I am here all of the other days, so if someone comes along and ding-dongs on the bell, I let them in. They might just want a quiet drink, or just sit down and have a rest. I just connect with the fact that they want space. I’m a non-drinker myself but they might just want to have that quiet moment with a special friend and just sit out in the sun. These two women came in, and that’s all they wanted to do, was have a couple of glasses of wine, sit out in the sun, and that’s what they did. I feel sorry for the people who come in and they want a beer, because I suck at doing that, but I do pour it. I love it when they come and drink it out of bottles. I don’t have to pour it out of the tap. One guy, his wife who’s not a local, she was going to a meeting all afternoon, so he sat here, came in and had a couple of beers. 

Ōpōtiki has changed a lot. It used to be a thriving little town. We used to have lots of things happening, it was more interactive with family and children. Now, we’re going towards development to bring that back, because we had quite a few businesses. We had a dairy factory and we had a clothing factory. We had a lot of other factories in Ōpōtiki, but it’s just sort of the main-stayer’s pushing things forward. It’s like everything, you have to develop and move with the times.

Well, I suppose there’s a lot of negative things about Māoridom, but growing up in a small town, it’s part of your culture. Whanaungatanga. It’s one big family. You just encompass everybody. I’ve been living with my brothers and sisters and my parents and my own children. We’ve got heaps of relatives coming from Ōpōtiki, and most of the town is related to me. Everyone is your brother. Everyone is your sister. It’s probably cultural, and it’s probably because of my own beliefs, too. You have to be kind to other people. There’s enough mean people in the world. 

I was born in Ōpōtiki. My mum was born in Ōpōtiki. Her whānau are from here. I belong to Ngāti Ira, which is Waioweka, at the end of the, at the beginning of the gorge, at the end of the Waioweka Strait, and my other hapu is Ngāi Tama, and that’s my grandfather’s side. My father was of Scottish descent. His parents were Scots, and then him and my mum raised their family here in Ōpōtiki, and there were six of us children. I had my two children here. I raised them here up until my youngest would have been about three, and then we left for big adventures, and came back in 2006 to Ōpōtiki, from the city, just so I could spend some quality time with my dad.”