Manawatū Conversations

Bronwyn McManus. On an 18 acre lifestyle block for 19 years, several on the road. Wanted country living. How lifestyle blocks are used. Community spirit. Work involved, livestock. Lifestyle appeals to young families. Country schools. Access to schools and town. Teacher aid work so fits school hours. Septic tanks. Quiet environment (mainly sheep and beef area). Lifestylers and farmers getting on together. Lifestyle networks. Diversifying lifestock. Coloured sheep, goats, deer. Stocking rates on small blocks. Benefits of the environment for children. Moving on to a large high school.

Ric Foxley, Part 4 of 4. To Ethiopia in 2009. Met Amlaku, who said he wanted to go to university. Ric’s family funded him. In contact until now (2023). Fundraising for irrigation. Visited Ethiopia again in 2015. Set up “Bricks for Life” incorporated society to help. 2017 Amlaku brought to NZ for a month. Operatunity tour of Italy in 2017. Amlaku’s business activities, tourism, “Days for Girls”, plus soap and detergent products. Impacts of Covid and civil war. Sending money. Future developments.

Ric Foxley, Part 3 of 4. District manager for World Vision, 40 hour famine, etc.. Overseas trips. World Vision in non-Christian countries. World Vision funding, child sponsorship. Water pumps. World problems, poverty, climate change. Christopher Monckton. Fewer younger volunteers. Move to get bequests to replace shrinking traditional funding sources. Time and financial constraints for younger people/families. Leprosy Mission. Getting bequesting for Leprosy Mission. Tertiary Students Christian Fellowship.

Ric Foxley, Part 2 of 4. Worked in Bennetts for 7 years. Wife at Teachers College, bond cancelled when became pregnant. Selling Christian books. Joined a Christian Community of Celebration in England. Long sea and land trip to the UK, running out of money. Living in a cooperative environment producing Christian music. To a smaller community in Dorset. Left the community in 1982 and bought a house locally. Still in contact with people from there. Garden maintenance business, then returned to NZ in 1991. Settling in Ashhurst. Tried real estate sales, gave up. Wife busy in pastoral care. Managed a bulb growing business, then on to World Vision

Ric Foxley, Part 1 of 4. Studying English at Massey University in 1965, a time of change. Grew up on a sheep farm. Father died young. Kings in Auckland, then Gisborne Boys High. 70% Maori at primary school, all got on well. Social divisions, farm owners, farm workers and Maori. Wanted to be a vicar when young. Tramping in the Ureweras. Tickling trout. History at school. University funded by the government. Charles Waldegrave. Female students. Transformed be Christianity. Many students in a Christian revival then. Charismatic renewal. (Went to England in 1975, very different there.) University social life around the church. Married, working in Bennett’s Bookshop while finishing degree.

Mike Carter, Part 2 of 2. Building a new life in New Zealand. Wife a house surgeon. Mixed race school. Few Maori students at Massey in the 1970s. Been on two protest marches, one in Johannesburg, the other in 1981 (Springbok tour). Views of the law in New Zealand. Different situation in early South African settlement. Growing sense of Maori identity. Separation of/distinctions between groups in society. The end of apartheid in South Africa. Children’s experiences of South Africa. Trips back. On the school PTA in the 1980s. Highbury School for the diversity of pupils. What daughters are doing now.

Mike Carter, Part 1 of 2. Coming from South Africa in 1971. Why left South Africa. Apartheid. Fitting in in New Zealand, similarities and differences. Racial issues in New Zealand compared to South Africa. South Africa inter-racial marriages, crime. Palmerston North in the 1970s. Unavailable food.

Anne Weir, Part 2 of 2. Worked for Massey University when competed MBA, 1 year as an academic, then in administration. Primary school teaching and university teaching compared. A variety of administrative roles. Extramural materials production, student support, student management systems and regulations. Distance teaching expertise at Massey University. Complex printing and distribution issues, mainly hardcopy. Materials design. Changes over time. Production schedules. Exams for distance students. Administration in the College of Business. Career pressures on students. Women and non-traditional areas, STEM courses. Were girls discouraged from taking STEM courses? Retirement.

Anne Weir, Part 1 of 2. To university in late 1960s, common for her group of girls. Best at maths and English, specialized in sciences. Choice of university subject. Never planned to be a housewife. Oldest of 4 girls. Married after 2 years of university. Did new 1 year post-degree teacher training course. Teaching Standard 3 and 4. Children and on a farm block. Stopped teaching. Designing houses, studying building technology (top student), then working as architectural draftsperson. Made redundant, marriage breakup, back to university studying business law then accounting degree (MBA).

Christine McIvor, Part 2 of 2. Retraining when returned to school dentistry. Dental nurses renamed dental therapists. Students now do a double degree. Working in Woodville and Eketahuna, then Feilding. Many school clinics closed on health and safety grounds, moved to centralized hubs. Impact of computers. Registration of dental therapists. Dental assistants. More parental involvement. Pupil education weakened. Benefits of fluoride, improved diet, etc.. Migrant children. Toothbrushes. Diagnostic x-raying with computers. Wider health problems from teeth. Activities in retirement. Changes in Palmerston North. Message for grandchildren.