Q What are some of the roles you have in the Maniototo and which are your favourites?
When you first come to the Maniototo, there are so many ways to be involved. I was young when we moved to here (23) and my very first and favourite role to this day is with our local radio station. There’s been Art Deco, Maniototo Promotions, Chamber of Commerce, Community Organisation Grants Scheme (Cogs) and various awesome events and fundraisers. Although I’ve had to step back a bit to focus on our own businesses, I am still involved in our arts council, facilitate our business group and am editor of our local community publication Positively Maniototo.
Q What qualifications and experiences have you brought to your roles, and why did you decide to settle in the Maniototo?
Mum and Dad bought the Maniototo Dental Centre in Ranfurly (in addition to the main practice in Mosgiel) as well as a cottage in Kyeburn. We were never really city folk. Mum and Dad would take us camping for weeks on end, fishing, tramping, rabbit-shooting, braving the rapids in various rivers on our inflatables. All good Kiwi stuff.
The Kyeburn cottage was a base for us over the weekends and while I worked for the then Naseby Forestry and Roadex during my university holidays. After travelling for a couple of years, a job came up for my future husband (Jeff) in the Maniototo. We said we’d stay for a couple of years until we decided where we wanted to live permanently. We never left, it’s been 15 years.
In 2009 a community and economic development role was offered through the Department of Internal Affairs. Various qualifications (a bachelor of commerce in marketing management and various public speaking/performance training) helped me secure the Project Maniototo role but the variety of community experience was key. There was much to learn, but I was determined and optimistic. The main outcome was a wider understanding of rural community and the importance of communications.
Q What are the good things about living in such a small community and what are the challenges?
It’s still real New Zealand here. Raw, honest, resilient, passionate, friendly, hard-working, down-to-earth, grounded. I guess there’s some resistance to change but the positives shine through in the end.
Q What motivates you to help with some of the district’s recent campaigns and initiatives?
Project Maniototo was always a finite contract so after it finished I took a step back to focus on family and find a way to continue working, but that didn’t mean I was no longer passionate about the Maniototo and our people.
When the possibility of downsizing and moving our Ranfurly library and the closure of our only bank came up, I was approached by a lot of people to help — you just can’t say no to that. Even through something negative we were able to highlight all the positive reasons why the bank should stay — the plethora of facilities and community initiatives available and potential growth. That day of the protest, I was so proud of everyone who turned up. They cared so much and that is something to be celebrated, even if we did lose the bank. We kept our library though.
Q How important is networking and resilience in an area like the Maniototo, especially in the winter?
When something significant happens everyone in a small community feels it. In the 2013 big snow, farms and stations struggled to keep up with bringing stock down. Suddenly they needed to feed very hungry snow rakers. We used the radio station as a base and collected food to distribute. The small things count too, mowing the elderly neighbour’s lawn, car-pooling kids to sport, filling the cake tins for the ill, taking round a trailerload of firewood ...
Q How important is the Otago Central Rail Trail to the Maniototo and its business community?
The rail trail has lifted our small towns but so will tourism on a wider scale — the new scenic route linking Queenstown and Dunedin, travellers realising it’s hardly any more time to come this way rather than via the Teviot Valley and visitors basing themselves in the Maniototo to explore further afield. There’s a major movie, You Got The Cowboy, being filmed here next summer. All these opportunities create business confidence.
Q What do you like about being in business yourself?
To be self-employed was something I’d always aimed for but couldn’t really see how that would look. Dad died tragically in 2009 and after some time it became clear we wanted to conserve the cute Art Deco building which had housed his dental practice. During Project Maniototo, I had become aware of the creative talent out there (including my husband’s) and wanted it to be celebrated and accessible. After Project Maniototo finished, "The Practice — retail therapy in Ranfurly" was born and now tells the story of life in the Maniototo. The fragility of relying purely on a bricks and mortar retail experience in a small town kicked in after a few years so I am currently setting up an online store which will launch very soon.
Q Ranfurly’s first Lilliput Library has recently been installed outside your business, The Practice. What are people reading these days?
The concept of these miniature libraries is that of "Poems in The Waiting Room" creator, Ruth Arnison. My mum-in-law, Edie, pointed one out to me and straight away I needed one! Readers are turning over the books so quickly I haven’t yet had the chance to note particular reading themes.
