Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, This morning I am writing from Raumati Beach on the Kāpiti Coast. It is thrashing down with rain and I know many of you in the central motu will be batoning down the hatches. On Wednesday we had a very successful launch of the Palmerston North Deafblind […]

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, It’s a hot-diggity-do day here in the office for Sarah and I! We are working on four Peer to Peer Support gatherings in the coming week. Plans are now in place for Whakatu / Nelson, Palmerston North, Kāpiti, and Wellington/Lower Hutt. Board member Phil Thorn and I

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, This week I want to urgently highlight our need for Deafblind Services provided by Blind Low Vision NZ. Currently they have a review of the need for services. The tricky bit is that, if we are not asking for services then it won’t show up as a

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, Personally I find there is so much stuff in the world to listen to, to access in different ways, and to hope that, when I do access it, I will be able to hear it. I want to thank Mark for sending me the link to the

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, This week I am so pleased to be hosting Peter Allen and Natalie McLean from My Life My Voice here in Whakatū – Nelson. To have time to kōrero kanohi ke to kanohi – be in the presence of one another and to talk, is an enriching

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, Last week we introduced Tom Eats and Phil Thorn as new Board Members and promised to introduce you to our third new Board member. Drum roll please as we introduce Sally Britnell… — My name is Sally Britnell. I am a 50-something-year-old woman who doesn’t like to

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, This week I am delighted to let you know we welcome three new members onto our Board: Sally Britnell, Phil Thorn and Tom Eats, all identifying as deafblind/dual sensory impairment. In the coming weeks we will offer biographies for them so you can be really confident of

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, It was a pleasure on Tuesday to be able to attend the Nelson Deafblind Network lunch combined with a housewarming! It’s a beautiful time of year to be gathering in a courtyard, wherever you are in the motu/country. Some in the photo below chose not to have

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, Many of you may know now that I have a passion for deafblind access to Arts and Culture. I am delighted this week to bring you snippets from our community, some opportunities, and an invitation to offer of your experiences. We have many artists from within our

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! How wonderful it was to meet with so many of you from the Kāpiti Coast last Friday! And for those of you in Wellington and Lower Hutt how lovely to reconnect. It’s wonderful that we plan to reconnect in April and I look forward

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, As Amanda is busy connecting through Peer to Peer support meetings in the Wellington region we bring you a very short update this week. We find it hard to believe that we are almost a month into 2024 and a year on from our last seminar in

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, Every year I wonder what we can do for Helen Keller Day on 27 June. Mid-winter seems a long way away just now while I nurture lettuce and herbs in the garden, as many of you may also be doing. Here is an opportunity for us all

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, A warm start, both heart and weather, to you all from the Board, myself, Sarah, and Aimee – your team – here at Deafblind Association NZ Charitable Trust. I think of the New Year as “New Possibilities” and I make the same resolution each year, “This year

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, Pacific Disability Forum The following message has been received from Co-Chair Latoa, “… on the passing away of Dr Kevin Murfitt who represented WBU Oceania Subregion in past PDF regional conferences and chaired the Pacific DPO Fund successfully in his term. May Kevin’s legacy inspire us to

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, In February this year, Deafblind Association of New Zealand Charitable Trust submitted an application to the Rehabilitation International Centennial Award. While the award recipients were announced earlier in the year, we have only recently received the physical items, which consist of: A beautiful decorative fabric covered box

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, So, here we are sliding into the end of year break and still there are so many exciting things to do! Judy is busy organising a Deafblind Hamilton Network gathering before the close of play this year, Phil is coordinating for Lower Hutt/Wellington in January, and Andrea

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, Firstly I will apologise for not sending you an email last Friday. I was away at the Kāpō Māori 40th Celebration and Conference in Queenstown. While my luggage travelled with me, my JAWS Screen Reading Software packed his bags and went somewhere else! The Conference was wonderful,

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, This week I am down in Christchurch to be with Resource Teachers of the Deaf (RTD), Resource Teachers Vision (RTV), Advisors on Deaf Children (AoDC), Special School representatives, Deaf Aotearoa, Blind Low Vision NZ, Audiologists, Optometrists and Southern Cochlear Implant Programme (SCIP). The purpose is: To connect

Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, Whoop, whoop, whoop! We launched our Wellington/Lower Hutt/Kāpiti group last Saturday. We had five deafblind, one voluntary tactile interpreter, one voluntary driver/technical advisor, and Jacqui, Deafblind Coordinator Extraordinaire! Phil hosted at the Laura Fergusson Trust and the catering was donated. I learned so very much from all

Note: this message was prepared by Amanda on Rāhoro, Saturday. Kia ora Tatou, Hello to all of us, With apologies this is coming to you a little late this week, however that does not mean I have not been thinking of you all! I’m back in the “Big smoke” of Wellington and looking forward today