What a busy month April has been for us at Plunket as it has been the Annual Appeal Month. Our group has had great support from the community and we thank you for your part in that.
The raffle raised over $700 to go toward “Upgrading Plunket Room Furniture – With Parent and Child-Friendly Focus”. It is exciting to be able to begin our journey of providing improved, comfortable, breast-feeding chairs and to increase our child-friendly furniture as it has been a long time since we have been able to address this issue. We have some important thanks to convey to our sponsors, and to communicate with the public so that you know who have assisted us:
* Luke Atkinson (06 3709234) – for the donation, loading and transporting of the firewood.
* Mitre 10 – for lending us the trailer for over a month, saving us the task of unloading and reloading firewood.
* Antoni Smolnicki – for approaching us with the offer of a prize for a Therapeutic Massage.
* Community people who donated items for collective raffle prizes.
* The women who gave of their time to sell raffle tickets – even when it was really chilly!
* Sue Sullivan of Kitcheners for officiating as our raffle prize drawer.
This has certainly been a community effort that will benefit Martinborough.
May 2016 will see the closure of our Venice Street rooms for public use. This is a disappointment to our group and a nostalgic ending for many in Martinborough – but, it does not mean the ceasing of our activities! We are working to locate an alternative ‘clinic’ space and can assure all parents that this service will continue to operate. We have already held the recent “Your Moving Baby” course (with Annette, our Karitane) in the adjacent Playcentre building and we owe them our thanks for sharing their premises with us.
Notification of any alternate premise-use will be posted on the Plunket Room gate if you are unsure where we are to be at any particular time. Of course, the recent meeting regarding the beginning of the Waihinga Centre construction, was met with ‘glee’ by our group. It means that our alternate accommodation will be for a limited period only. At this point may I make a special mention of Shalinah Rurai to thank her for the wonderful work she has carried out over many years keeping our rooms so clean for us all.
Finally, if you did not see my article in the ‘Star’ last month or if you have not yet had time to respond to my request to join our database to give some small amount of time to assist us to keep Martinborough Plunket operating, please don’t hesitate to phone me (Pat – 06 3066237) to have your name added. If you are called and are unable at that time to assist, we will understand fully and thank you anyway!
Martinborough Plunket is reliant on the community of our township. Do keep warm in the coming months!
The winners of our raffle are:
1st – Paula Gillies
2nd – Lisa Ireland
3rd – Helen Kellang
4th – Christine Wilton
5th – Wendy Kevis & Ruth Henderson
