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We have had a great day celebrating Race Relations Day at our annual Tauranga Multicultural Festival on Saturday 6th March at the Historic Village, and it was thanks to You all for contributing to that success.
I would like to thank our Festival Committee and their families, our volunteers and helpers on the day for your work, creativity and dedication to create a great event.
A big thank you to our sponsors, especially Perry Foundation, Tauranga Charitable Trust, Kiwifestival, Tauranga City, Village on 17th and ANZ bank.
The support from newspapers, radio, Creative Tauranga, Tourism BOP, and printing of posters by GEON helped us greatly in promoting our event to a wide community in the Western Bay of Plenty area and beyond.
Our cultural performers have done their very best this year again, stall holders provided delicious food, exciting arts and crafts, we all have a chance to try new skills in Discovery tents and service providers came in force to provide information to visitors.
Lifestyle sports - Capoeira Brazil, Zumba and Tai Chi added extra dimension to our festival.
I would like to ask the coordinators -Sameli Tongalea for the Cultural Performers, Amita Shah for Food Stall holders, Ann Kerewaro for Service Providers, Barbi Messenger for Art and Crafts, David Leong for compiling video presentation in the TECT theater and Dana Puscas for the Discovery tents to pass this email to your groups with my thanks and real appreciation of their contribution into making this day such a fantastic event.
At last - a big thank you to our official guest,
Polish Ambassador Beata Stoczynska, Polish Consul Slawomir Stoczynski, Embassy of Republic of Poland
MP Simon Bridges,
Mr. Sam Sefuiva, Human Rights Commission, Principal Adviser Race Relations
Inspector Karl Wright-St.Clair –NZ Police, Area Tactical Response Manager
Mr Phil Simpson, Chairman YMCA
Councilor Catherine Stewart
and to our Patron Mayor Stuart Crosby for your support and for officially opening our Festival
Sincerely Yours
Ewa Fenn
President
- Hello All,Our exhibition "Celebrations around the World" started on Tuesday with a great opening night, and our Patron, Stuart Crosby has honored us with his presence and officially opened the exhibition...Presented were also Councilors Catherine Stewart and Cr Murray Guy, Creative Tuaranga CEO Tracey Rudduck, Creative Tauranga Gallery Curator John Beech; apologies from Simon Bridges, National MP and Jacinda Arden, Labour's MP, both promised to come and visit after their return from session in Wellington.Apologies also from Sandra McKenzie, Ethnic Affairs Advisor, Office of Ethnic Affairs.We are lucky to have an accomplished artist, Valda Niederer attending the night and also 2 of her paintings on display (and for sale) at the Italian exhibit.For all of you who missed the opening night I have attached a few photos taken by the director of Tauranga Korean Times, Hyun taek Yang. (See them in the Photos Gallery under the special event)I'm not sending any photos of the fantastic exhibits - to see them you must go to the Creative Tauranga gallery where you would also be able to purchase lots of art, craft and food items at the exhibition - great gifts just in time for Christmas.I would also like to thank all eight groups involved in creating the exhibition- China, Ecuador, India, Italy, Korea, Papua New Guinea, Philippines and Shetland Islands, you all have done extremely well in creating very distinctive displays in just one day.Thank you to TRMC members, volunteers, poster designer Teresa Gosling for all help and promotion;Tauranga Repertory theatre, Tauranga Museum, Farmers for lending us mannequins; Books-a- Plenty for lending us a beautiful globe for window display; Tauranga City Council for printing flyers, the Weekend Sun and Natasha Mitchell for editorial about this exhibition and our other events throughout the year; Belmondo shop of St. John St. and Volare Restaurant for wine for the opening night.
And last but not the least is to thank Creative Tauranga team for their great support and encouragements throughout the process of creating the exhibition - from the inception of idea to the last minute helping with setting up exhibits.
Thank you all on behalf of all people who came to live in Tauranga from many corners of the world and have a chance to showcase their art and culture.Kind regardsEwa "Celebrations around the World"
will be held at the Creative Tauranga exhibition hall between the 15th to 23rd of December.
