Kia ora

Welcome to our third Toru Newsletter, in its new form. I hope that hearing about all the wonderful events taking place in our region (details below!) warms your heart in these cold and wet winter months.

It can be easy to feel disheartened about the state of our environment, with the impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss being felt here in Aotearoa and across the world. However when I focus on the local, I feel hopeful.

There are so many amazing people and groups in our bioregion, doing great things to reduce our impact on the earth, regenerate nature and support community resilience. And of course it’s not only happening in our region…

Last week, I had the privilege of visiting Pourewa Reserve, right in the heart of our biggest city, Tāmaki Makaurau. The 34 hectare recreation area was returned to Ngāti Whātua Orākei as part of their settlement claims. Now guided by indigenous wisdom, the whenua has been transformed into a native nursery, Māra kai, apiary, Rongoā study and living laboratory.

All the food grown in the Māra kai is distributed for free on Fridays to the local community and City Mission. With approximately 350,000 eco sourced native plants currently being grown in the nursery, Pourewa is also making a significant contribution to the regeneration of the city.

I found it so inspiring to see what a huge impact this special place is now having across this city.

I have also been inspired these past few weeks, seeing so many amazing local organisations reach out to share their events through our new website and newsletter. A key intention of rejuvenating Toru Education was to connect people to all the amazing things already happening in our region, which so often we don't hear about. You'll see more about that below so read on to find out what's on!

Has anything in our region inspired you recently and made you feel hopeful? We would love to hear all about it, so hit reply and tell us!

I hope to see you at one of the many upcoming events.

Ngā mihi nui,

Fiona Naismith, for the Toru Education Trust

Gathering together despite the rain and creating ripples of inspiration, learning and local change. Hella Coenen reflects on the most recent Toru Trail event, last weekend at Garry and Ali Fosters' place: Matahiwi Forest Garden

On Sunday 18th August we gathered with 15 participants at Garry and Ali Fosters old country school house in the pouring rain. However, many of us who travelled there saw the magnificent rainbow that seemed to follow us for the day. A small community of 5 adults and 1 child live in the 2 houses and a tiny house on 2.4 acres. After being welcomed we made the most of a short dry patch with a bit of light trying to shine through the clouds, and went for a walk around...

Will be at Adam and Tinks place in Peka Peka, Just north of Waikanae on the Kapati Coast on Sunday 15th Sep from 11am - 2pm, including lunch.

Join Adam and Tink for our next Toru Trail event to explore their permaculture gardens and hear about their experiences creating an intentional community, and trialing syntropic agroforestry.

Click below to read more about the Toru Trail event in Peka Peka, and get your tickets.

Fiona Naismith shares what is inspiring her about our new partner organisation: the Work That Reconnects Community of Practice.

I recently started listening to the podcast “We Are The Great Turning”, a beautiful exploration of “what it takes to live with our hearts and integrity intact in this time of global crisis”. I came across it after hearing about The Work That Reconnects (WTR) Community of Practice in Pōneke and wondering ‘what’s it all about?’.

I won’t try to summarize the answer here, but if you are someone who grapples with hope, heartbreak, optimism, apathy and more when it comes to the state of our planet and our role in its healing, I would thoroughly recommend having a listen.

“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present, and when you're worrying about whether you're hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you're showing up, that you're here and that you're finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that. That was what is going to unleash our intelligence and our ingenuity and our solidarity for the healing of our world.”

~ Joanna Macy - The Work That Reconnects

If this resonates with you, come along to the Work That Reconnects Community of Practice, held every other Thursday in Innermost Gardens (7-9pm), to delve deeper.

The next one is tonight, Thurs 22 Aug, and the next one after will be on Thurs 5th Sep.

More Toru Partners! 

Introduction to the Biodynamic approach in our gardens with Rachel Pomeroy

Rachel is an amazing educator with decades of experience teaching Biodynamics, Paekākāriki Orchards and Gardens (POG) is hosting Rachel for their next monthly meet up on Sep 1st.

This is a free event but please bring koha if you can to cover time and petrol etc, enrol here.

Learn with an Octogenarian Changemaker - Helen Dew

We are delighted to announce that Helen (who was the subject of a doco featured in our last newsletter here) is hosting and sharing knowledge with a series of workshops over the next couple of weeks!

First up is Vegetable and Fruit Growing, then Pebbles and Ripples (all about building personal and community resilience), and then a Composting Workshop!

Big Biochar Day Out

Char curious? Keen gardener? Orchardist? Lifestyler? Climate Champion? BBQ enthusiast? Come one, come all to this one-off opportunity to spend a day making biochar in a magical orchard, forest and garden.

Sustainable tickets available in colaboration with Kapati District Council for this event on Sep 28th

Backyard Food Forest Design

What is a food forest? What's so great about them? See the new food forage forest at Raumati Eco-Hub, a new Toru partner org! Join garden educator Hannah Zwartz for this hands on session.

There are two times to attend the workshop and the first is on Sep 15th. 

Doris Zuur fills us in on Paekākāriki’s latest community food-sharing initiative – which has been a runaway success!

"What do you do in Paekākāriki, when you have an idea? You meet up with your friends, and make a post on Paekākāriki Tauhokohoko!! And then the idea rolls and becomes unstoppable."

This is a fantastic case study in local change with real-world impact, click below to read how it all unfolded. 

We have a humble request of you (yes, you!): please share this newsletter with folks who would like to receive it. We would love it to be read by folks right across the lower north island. 

If you like our vision to connect those who want to learn and get involved in their community projects with those creating and hosting beautiful local events please take a moment to forward this newsletter to all your friends and family who you think might be interested AND ask them to sign up to receive it each month. 

And if someone forwarded this newsletter on to you or sent you the link? Are you interested to stay up to date with our events? Would you like us to promote your events (for free)?

Sign up now! ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️

Highlighting some of the learning opportunities in the coming weeks:

What is Capitalism? with Gary Williams

What then is a capitalist economy? What defines it that makes it different from other economic systems?

We will try to answer that question with your help.

Tickets are almost sold out for this enlightening workshop on August 25th. Click below to nab one of the last spots 

Tailor-Make Your Own Apple Trees Workshop

Would you like to learn how to tailor-make your own apple trees and then go home with new trees to plant?

Grafting is surprisingly simple, particularly with apple trees!

The workshop will be held on Sep 1st, 

Learn Water Divining with Hella Coenen

Water divining or dowsing is an ancient art that everyone can learn, with practice. This is a unique opportunity to understand energy and water flows in landscape and will be held on September the 8th. 

This newsletter has come into being because we saw a disconnect in our bioregion. We knew there were many great locals with knowledge to share, and some of them were already creating great opportunities for learning, connection and community spirit.

We also saw that many folks didn't know about these amazing opportunities to wānanga together and grow connections in their own back yards. 

To address these needs, we have started with a few interconnected 'small and slow solutions': our new website to host and promote events (among other things), our series of Toru Trail events across our focus area of Kāpiti, Te Whanganui-a-Tara - Wellington, the Hutt Valley and Wairarapa, as well as this monthly newsletter tying it all together and telling the story. 

If you resonate with our vision, we would love you to be involved, this can be in many ways!  

- Please share the good news far and wide, Sharing really is caring, and we want to find our people!

- Do you have an event or educational opportunity? - check out our guidelines and if it fits in with our kaupapa, then sign up and list your event with us! We are promoting local events for free.

- Join one of our events! Learn with us and our partner organisations. Invite a friend along and learn together.

- Do you have ideas for us? Reply to this newsletter or email us at info@toru.nz with your bright spark!