Some of the comments on this Blog have been pretty interesting of late. And there have been many many comments and visitors to all the pages about Ngai Tahu. In fact in the last month the topic has generated as much traffic as Scampi did.
Also I was never a nurse - not sure who started that rumour but my son would probably give me a pass mark for sticking plaster application and I am pretty good at anatomy after gutting 40,000 muttonbirds but nurse I aint nor ever have been. As for spin doctoring - I don't do spin. Ask any of my clients - which include a two very large offshore companies who employ about 40,000 people between them, and five other companies and two government departments. So if I am crap at spin - please don't tell them.
Okay back to what we have been thinking. Its this - while Ngai Tahu thinks its a big deal that 200 -300 turn up to hear Mark Solomon wax lyrical on the Marae at Rehua, We had, on one day, 1200 people visit this site. We can see what stories they were reading and we can tell you with absolute confidence that 987 of them read Ngai Tahu stories. In any given day between - 200 - and 987 people are coming into Roarprawn to specifically catch up on the Ngai Tahu stuff.
So went and had a cruise around the Ngai Tahu site - there is something called community net but you need your Whai Rawa pin number to access it. We like the Whai Rawa scheme but it appears that the only way you can access the community net is if you subscribe to whai rawa.
And we have seen some of the papers for TRONT - they obviously get to the Marae ( well we bloody hope they do) So why not purge them of all the commercial stuff and put them on the web site?
We also think the demand for an on line forum is very strong. And it is something that Ngai Tahu should investigate - As they should also investigate Twitter, And Facebook for getting the message across.
Now I can already here the screams but " we Ngai Tahu do things face to face on the Marae,"
Well thats open to debate - Marae are a relatively modern affectation for us - Kaika (semi permanent villages )were our thing. We were too nomadic to have any real strong roots especially in the South.
And we have always been responsive and taken advantage of the modern world. we dont put muttonbirds in kelp much any more and we dont use tins like we did when i was a kid - now we use plastic buckets and some are experimenting with vacuum packs. So we need to change with the times.
I issue a challenge to Ngai Tahu - be brave harness the internet and all it has to offer - reach out to your people and dont hide in the Wharenui.
You will get more than 200 people tuning in to listen and talk to you. You may even get a thousand.
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7 comments:
You are so right, this is the 1st pleace I visit when I see something about us in the media, I am thankful to see the thought & facts from others whom obviously are more in the know than me!!! Ask our kids about where you get the most up to date info & they will tell you to google it!!
So thankyou BB I for 1 really appriciate the effort you put into keeping us as Nagi Tahu Whanui in the loop.
I too am grateful to you BB. You inspired me to get off my butt...
Ngai Tahu do need to embrace the digital age and to do that we should start with one of the fundamental problems - communication or the lack of it. Not just the tools that provide the ability to communicate but the ethos of wanting to communicate and believing it is important. Maybe this has just been a low priority but in todays world there are no more excuses.
For too long iwi members been unable to contribute to the debate around big issues. Too often we hear about it well after decsions are made - hey! there are plenty of good ideas and perspectives out there amoungst our tribal members. They will add richness to the debate and they have a stake in the decisions made.
Improving the communication pathways and should be a priority, it will make us stronger.
MM you give a very valid point, there are many able & intelligent voices within the whanau katoa & using this as a medium to communicate we can all have the opportunity to have a korero, or not if you dont want to. The point made though is that using this forum we are all a whole lot more informed than we would normally be as whanui!
For the sad fact of the matter is we the beneficiaries do have normal jobs & that we are not always in a position to travel to hui across the motu, however we would like to be there & gain the understanding we crave about the situation we are in as an iwi. We do not have corporate cars with a fuel card facility & we defiantly do not have the ability to be flown around for free either!
So spare a thought for those of us that DREAM of earning in the hundreds of thousands & support this form of communication with us!
BB who are you then - tell all
I am not sure about Facebook as a means of communication although it is good for connecting with the rellies if you can be bothered wading through all the bumph. I must be too old or technologically deprived (no Blackberry!) to get Twitter but a well-moderated and maintained blog with good navigation would be a place that I would like to see.
I feel that it would need to be sponsored by someone other than OTRONT though or the conversation might become rather stilted with people worried about the security of their identities etc if contentious matters were being discussed.
Would you use a site like blogger or Live Journal or are there other alternatives that are free and user friendly?
I look forward to the germination of this seed.
There are blog sites with multiple bloggers grouped around subject or politics that offer good models.
The real advantage of this approach is that instead of hiding differences they get celebrated because everyone gets a say. If the kaupapa is to communicate and encourage participation then bloggers either agree and post or disagree and don't post or maybe comment.
You could link to individual blogs, OTRONT and the runaka's, websites, etc
It not the job of OTRONT to run this but perhaps the information within each monthly te panui runaka could be incorporated.
Some of these sites maintain a practice of not disclosing the real identities of the bloggers. I'm slightly torn on this, although the personal attacks and even stalking that can occur across the blogshere is pretty bad, it's also good to know who saying what.
Thank you BB for this very informative site. I have read every thing you have here on Ngai Tahu, and for the first time, i feel informed by the real and serious issues facing our iwi.
I was surprised to learn that Mark Solomon doesn't have any financial management skills, is intimidating to his own whanau, and doesn't chair meetings well.
Perhaps the ultimate problem with
Mark is that he has nowhere to go after TRONT?
Who would employ him? What are his skills?
Out of interest, WHY have there been so many chairs on Holdings?
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