Arohaina mai!
Aroha is a wonderful word, covering love, pity, affection and approval! Te Māra Reo is definitely a labour of love, and if you also feel warmly towards this venture, we'd love to have your help!
Some ways you could help
Koha ~ Donations
"Friends of Te Māra Reo"
Ētahi Momo Āwhina - Some Ways You Could Help Us.
One way of helping would be to give a cash donation -- there's something about that further down this page -- but there are many other kinds of assistance which would also be greatly appreciated.
For example, you could donate plants or seeds, especially of those species which we do not have represented here at the moment. Better still, you could sponsor a particular plant, and receive reports on its progress (click here to see a PDF file with a list of those we would like to acquire).
We would also appreciate any suggestions as to where we might obtain some of the plants that are harder to find. Information about these plants is always useful.
Similarly, information about possible sources of funding or assistance would be much appreciated.
I would particularly like to have recipes that include the fruit, leaves, flowers or stems of New Zealand native plants, especially those with names brought here from Polynesia. We will include these in the pages for the plants concerned (you will already find a suggestion for cooking an extraordinarily delicious chicken in the page for miro).
If you would like to give a hand with weeding, getting rid of blackberry, and similar maintenance your help would certainly be greatly appreciated. If you are a weaver, we have a pā harakeke of the Taiore variety which urgently needs proper maintenance -- help us keep it tidy and have a supply of harakeke for your weaving!
Your comments would also be most welcome, including suggestions for improvements and correction of errors on the web pages. Constructive criticism is much more valuable than unmerited plaudits! (Merited plaudits, however, are always appreciated.)
We would also appreciate ideas about raising funds and information about possible sources of financial support.
Our e-mail addresses are temarareo {at} tumanako.org, and temaarareo {at} gmail.com. We do not have a Facebook page yet, but watch this space!
Hoki atu ki runga - Return to the top of the page
Koha - Donations
Over the last three years (2007-10) we have spent around $60,000 in hard cash on expenses directly associated with Te Māra Reo. This doesn't take into account any of the work done on the web site, research expenses and so on, or the routine things like rates, water and telephones -- it just covers the money paid to people for mowing, removing weeds, fencing, and removing the remaining pine trees. I estimate that if we had an income of about $25,000 a year (while still donating our own labour) we would at least break even, and probably be able to contemplate some capital expenditure. Our family savings are now pretty much exhausted and since I have only my National Superannuation as a regular source of income, obviously we can no longer maintain the language garden adequately from our own personal resources. We have not been able to employ any assistants since early 2010, but we are continuing to purchase plants, using the special funds we set aside for that purpose.
So cash donations and grants would always be very much appreciated.
We are planning to set up a proper Trust for "Friends of Te Māra Reo" to administer donations, and enter into a formal undertaking that the properly assessed value of any trees, equipment or other improvements purchased from these funds would be donated to an appropriate organisation or interest group in the unlikely event that the family sometime in the future decided to sell the property.
This is "work in progress", but in the meantime, we would still welcome donations and acknowledge them personally and on this website, let you know just what your contribution has enabled us to do, and invite you to visit us so that you can see this for yourself.
When the Friends Trust has been registered, we will open a PayPal account, just in case someone might like to make a donation via credit card. Meanwhile, cheques can be sent at any time to:
"Te Māra Reo",
c/o Benton Family Trust,
PO Box 33, Ngaruawahia, Waikato 3742,
Aotearoa/New Zealand"
Hoki atu ki runga - Return to the top of the page
"Friends of Te Māra Reo
Anyone who uses the web site or otherwise has an interest in the garden and what we are trying to do is welcome to join our group of friends -- we will add your email address to our mailing list, and let you know whenever our "News" page is updated, when new pages are added to the site, or there are other developments or information we'd like to let our friends know about. Our "friends" mailing list is not used for any other purpose and is not available to third parties so you don't need to worry about security!
If you would like to be registered as a friend, just email us at temaarareo {at} gmail.com.
Hoki atu ki runga - Return to the top of the page
|
