Tū Mai Te Toki - The Origins

Tākiri te haeata, ka ao, ka awatea, horahia mai ko te ao Mārama

Dawn breaks, comes the daylight and the world is aglow with brilliant light.

In 2012, I attended the Annual General Meeting of Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa. Stories of investments into luxury golf courses up on Kawau Island and internet technology from the middle east had triggered my curiosity.

So, I joined a van load of my cousins, a new wave ready to contribute to our iwi, and we travelled out to Ruaihona Marae at Te Teko to engage with our Rūnanga and its annual report back to the people.

Ater several hours of hui, we left deflated. Something I will never forget.

In fact, my overwhelming memory of that day is the frustration at the lack of actual answers and the cavalier attitude towards a loss of $5.2 million in two separate failed investments.

I was a print journalist at the time, and I had just finished a stint at the Waikato Times where I was a Māori Affairs reporter. And, back then I was still young, and naive enough, to ask some big questions of Waikato Tainui and its governing body with the audacity not to blink an eye. So the idea of doing it in my own iwi wasn’t a difficult one.

I have always been resolute that the people deserve to know what is going on so they can make their own decisions about the collective’s business. Therefore, naïve? Yes. But also well intentioned. It is why being a reporter in a mainstream newspaper appealed, the ability to be the fourth estate and provide information that insights action.

Nā reira, frustrated at the lack of answers I did what so many other well-intentioned but green writers do and created a blog.

The first post was made on January 8, 2013. Tuatahi was an introduction covering much of the same background above with a little more on the failed GoNet investment – i.e. the wireless technology from the middle east that promised to provide access to the internet from anywhere in the Whakatāne rohe. In today’s context, with unlimited data connections in most places, that might not seem like much. But in the 2010s it could have been groundbreaking.

It wasn’t though. Why you ask? Well, take a read of Tū Mai Te Toki the blog, which lends its name to this business. It starts at the end, but if you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will find an easy way to commence the read. Settle in, at 24 posts its a bit of a read and you could get lost in the comment section for hours.

Or follow along here. Te Rangitaki o Tū Mai Te Toki is the new Tū Mai Te Toki - the blog. Using this platform, I want to be able to provide a place for my own voice to be heard. A place where you can read about issues I want to discuss and hopefully you will see how I can help you craft stories that tell your narrative.

Nā reira, long story short, the blog still stands. And additionally, it provides the foundations of this business. More over, Te Rangitaki o Tū Mai te Toki is a place where I can showcase my craftmanship through the sharing of blog posts. In this section, I will highlight previous pieces of work and I will share new mahi or discuss current projects. I will, at times, discuss elements occurring in this modern day context and sometimes this may also be political matters - but that doesn’t mean that I am restarting the original blog again.

I have evolved, and as a result so has Tū Mai Te Toki.

We might not be for everyone, but, through experience that you can only get in the heat of the fire, we know that if we believe in the story then we can tell it in a way that creates magic. That’s why we want to work with inspiring people who seek to tell genuine and authentic stories that can change the world.

Kei mura o te ahi, he pounamu.