News

25 Jun

Boomer Women Are Changing the Time-Worn Aging Script

• Today's woman aged 60-70 refuses to treat the next few decades as a slow fade rather than one of more freedom.
• The change in us is more a shift than a vibe. Few of us planned any of it. We just never got the memo.
• Confidence and visibility aren't things we are willing to surrender when we turn 60.

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25 Jun

Mr Hill, 84 today, contemplates the end (of writing)

From Newsroom: I turn 84 today. Maybe that’s why I find myself thinking of the decision made by Maurice Gee, who published no adult fiction for his last 16 years. He stopped, as deliberately and absolutely as that.

I also think of Harry Orsman, lexicographer, authority on English as spoken in New Zild, and one of my university tutors at what was then Victoria University of Wellington. Harry was talking to us one afternoon about Chaucer’s language and sources. He mentioned his own tutor, from the late 1940s it would have been. I can’t recall the guy’s name. But I do remember Harry pausing, smiling affectionately, and saying ”There’s not much left of him now, except a pair of bright blue eyes. But he’s still writing.” I knew instantly that I wouldn’t – couldn’t – forget that tribute.

So there you are. One author who stopped; one who couldn’t. Pause here, to contemplate which category each of us may slip into. I know authors who stopped because they couldn’t face another rejection; others whose health or other outside-world circumstances meant they couldn’t keep going. I sympathise with them all.

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25 Jun

Rotorua iwi Ngāti Whakaue launches ‘world-first’ papakāinga aged care model

From the New Zealand Herald: A Rotorua iwi has launched a “world-first” aged care model designed to support kaumātua at home for as long as possible.

Ngāti Whakaue unveiled the papakāinga model of care “designed by iwi, for iwi” at Te Puia in Rotorua on Friday.

About 160 people attended the launch, including Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora, Iwi Māori Partnership Boards and Ngāti Whakaue representatives.

Ngāti Whakaue has been working with Te Rau Ora – the kaupapa Māori health workforce development organisation for Aotearoa – to address who will care for the iwi’s ageing population, and where.

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