CELEBRATING 125 YEARS OF TE PUKE - 2006.

The Inaugural Meeting of Te Puke's 125th Celebration -held Tuesday 20 July 2004 - 7pm at the Te Puke Hotel.

Present: Christine Clement, Lynne Robertson, Alan Cotter, Graeme Mortlock, Ernie Dix, Shirley McGregor, Doug Martin Apologies: Geoff Mutton, Jack and Alice Gemming, Val Gibbons, Graeme Ardern and Ivan Tanner.

A meeting had been called in the Te Puke Times of Wednesday 4 July 2004 to see if there was any interest in celebrating the 125th year since the settlement of Te Puke township.

The above people attended and apologies were received as above.

2006 marks the 125th year since the arrival of the Lady Jocelyn to Tauranga, it is also 25 years since the town centennial was celebrated. Other celebrations due that year include the Malyon Family 125th Reunion, Te Puke A & P Society 100th, Paengaroa School 100th and the Kiwifruit Festival 30th.

Christine and Lynne suggested to the group that instead of holding a one-off celebration for the 125th that it would be easier to run a celebration over the whole year involving the different groups in the area in their usual programme. The Te Puke Times has offered to change their paper heading to mark the event for all of 2006.

After some discussion the above was felt to be a good idea as it was not a main event like a Centennial. It was decided to write a letter to all the organisations/schools in the Te Puke area to advise them of the 125th Quasquicentennial for planning of their programme for 2006. Lynne is to get a total of the groups/schools etc in the area so that we have a figure to arrive at for postage and printing costs and to apply for local funding for this step. Lynne will also find when the 2005 updated list is ready at the council so we can use that. It is envisaged that the letters will go out either later this year or early in 2005. It was suggested that possibly the annual Float Parade held in early December could be used as a "Then and Now" theme and a wind up to the whole year. This would be taken up with Focus Te Puke, organisers of the parade.

LOGO: Christine thought it would be nice to have a logo for correspondence etc. It was suggested that the old Te Puke Borough Council logo might be suitable. Alan Cotter has a copy of this at home so he will get it to Christine. Christine to check with WBOPDC re using this logo - maybe slightly updated. (This has been done and I am waiting to hear back from WBOPDC)

BY-LINE: As Quasquicentennial is a rather difficult word to spell as well as pronoun the group thought that a byline would be a good idea for publicity etc. However no-one thought of one immediately so any ideas? - Celebrating 125 Years of Te Puke, Celebrating Te Pukes 125th, Te Puke 125, ...

PLAQUE: It was felt that a plaque noting the fact that the town had celebrated the 125th would be a good idea. Further investigation is needed with this as to pricing and to where to place it. Suggestions were the site of the old town well or possibly on the existing plaque erected for the 100th.

MEMORIALS: It was noted that many of the older memorials in the township are needing some work on them to keep them readable- especially noted is the memorial at Jellicoe Park to the Maori Princess and the Te Puke Primary School Roll of Honour. Ernie Dix said that the RSA did look after the School RoH for a while.

BOOK: - Lynne and Christine are keen to work on a book for the 125th. Lynne is a trained historian and is from an early Te Puke family. Christine is an amateur historian/genealogist and has much Te Puke information on her web site. Lynne and Christine will apply for funding for this book to enable Lynne to visit Wellington and Auckland to collect data and maps relating to this area. (Further to this, as we do not want to set up a charitable trust ourselves to do this I have spoken to the treasurer of Te Puke Rotary and I am to apply to them to operate a cheque book for us through their accounts.) The book is intended to be self funding and will probably be more name orientated than the Centennial book which was more place orientated.

No 2 ROAD HALL: Doug Martin of No 2 Road then spoke to the group about this hall which is probably one of the last links to the settlers of this town. He would like to form a group to restore it and has a letter to the editor in the Te Puke Times of the 21 July 2004. Dudley Vercoe is a trustee of the hall and Sue Henderson at Fenton McFadden has a copy of the original deeds.

TOUR: Christine then suggested that maybe during the 125th we could run a bus tour showing the old sites of Te Puke - Cannan Landing, No 2 Road Hall, some of the tracks/paper roads that the settlers used between Te Matai Road/No 1/No 2/No 3 Roads. Also to the Landing Reserve on SH2 at the Waiari Stream bridge. More work on this closer to the time. HOWEVER as none of us knew where Cannan Landing actually was we needed to get someone who knows to take us to it shortly. It is understood that Mayor Weld knows so will approach him for directions.

The meeting wound up about 8.30pm. Another meeting is planned for later this year.



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