Welcome. Nau mai, haere mai.
Ngā mihi ki a koutou mō tō koutou tautoko.
Our family is blessed to have had lovely community support and we sincerely thank you for that.
For those of you who might not know me and my whanau, I thought I would share a few snippets from our lives.
I was a student in Cape Town in 2000 when I met my future husband, Deon.
Between studies and work, we travelled on a working holiday through Europe.
After six months, we were looking for a bit more sunshine (sorry Scotland) and searched for positions on this side of the world. After a few searches on
Google, Deon found a locum position as an anaesthetist at the hospital in sunny Gisborne.
We were completely blown away! Little did we know that our lives would be changed forever. We immediately fell in love with Tairawhiti,
especially the people.
Life threw a few curveballs at us during that time but we felt the spirit of this region in our blood and knew we were not leaving. We put our roots down,
joined heaps of community groups and in the process made wonderful friends for life. Our boys, Alex,17, and Luk,15, were born here and attend Campion
College and Gisborne Boys High School respectively.
Yet we are so grateful when our boys get to hang out and enjoy quality time with their grandparents and cousins living on the other side of the world – that
connection is priceless.
Life is all about the next generation. I want to lead an organisation that is proud of the world we leave behind for our children.
I love our people and our place and want to support and enable the changes, innovation and possibilities that will allow everyone to succeed.
As Deon and I look back on 21 wonderful years here in Tairawhiti, we remain so grateful for the kindness that continues to be shown to us by whanau here.
This is our home.
"Ma te Atua tatau e manaaki e tiaki I nga wa katoa!"
"May the Lord always bless and guide us."
Rehette