The Swainson/Woods Collection comes to a location near you.

From 8th, and 9th September, digital screens will be installed in the libraries at Waitara, Inglewood, Opunake and Eltham, and the Percy Thomson Gallery in Stratford. Each screen will display a selection of 25 images from the Swainson/Woods Collection including some images of service people that came from the South Taranaki area. The Swainson/Woods Collection is one of the largest photographic collections of its kind in New Zealand. Presently it numbers at 85,000 processed images. The entire collection could reach over 125,000 once the cataloguing work has been completed. Spanning eight decades from 1923 until the 1990s, the collection features the photographs of individuals and families, weddings, clubs, local businesses, community events and candid photographs of social events. The public is encouraged to contribute information about the images if they recognise the people or occasions depicted, and can do so by writing in books provided at each venue or by contacting Puke Ariki. This ongoing digital exhibition project is made possible by generous support from the Taranaki Electricity Trust. It will be regularly updated, enabling the Taranaki community an opportunity to engage with images from this unique collection. The Swainson/Woods collection was gifted to Puke Ariki in 2005, and now that the first steps of cleaning and re-housing the material are complete, the majority of the collection is searchable and new images are added every month and available on Puke Ariki's website www.pukeariki.com

Congratulations Eltham

Congratulations Eltham

If you live in Eltham then Im sure you will have seen the mural on King Edward street painted by Ben Barrett entitled the Heritage of Eltham.  The mural was organised by the Eltham Community Development Group. 

Recently the Eltham Community Development group entered this mural in a Resene Paints mural competition.We have just heard back that this mural achieved a 2nd place in the Professional mural section. Murals were entered from all over New Zealand.

1st place was awarded to the Victory Community Association.

Pictures of the winners will be loaded onto the Resene website and facebook pages before the end of January 2011.  The links are www.resene.co.nz and facebook.com/resene

Rex Hartley, Alex Ballentyne Heather Walker, Judith Rodgers Gary Rodgers

Stuart Wakeling, ? ?

 updated 6 December 2010

Wheelarama 22 11 2010

Wheelarama in Eltham was a great day involving lots of vehicles of all different sizes shapes and description.


Wheelarama day video click here  


or try here  to watch it on youtube 22 - 11 - 2010

Elthams Record Breaking Scone

It’s official, as of August 2010 Eltham holds the record for the world’s biggest scone. Eltham broke the existing Guinness World Record with a giant 121kg scone - creaming the previous British record of 60kg.
You could smell it cooking all over town. It was an all day job, and they succeeded in shattering the previous world record.
Below is the link to the Close Up TVNZ news segment
http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/nz-town-attempts-record-breaking-scone-3720168/video
link to an article from the Daily News 18/08/2010 below 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/weird-world/4034416/Bakers-knead-to-break-record
link to an article from the Daily News 20/08/2010 below 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/4042711/Scone-top-of-the-world 
It was a sweet and not savoury scone, and Shaun McCarthy from Eltham Four Square told me the scone was still warm 22 hours after it came out of the oven!!
Well done!!!!!!

Eltham Semifinalist in Community of the Year

Here is a link to see the article on the South Taranaki District Councils website about Eltham being in  the running to win the Community of the Year Award


http://www.southtaranaki.com/Live/Press-Releases---News-Articles/Eltham-Community-of-the-Year-Semi-Finalist/

Eltham Down Hill Cheese Race 2010

The Eltham Down Hill Cheese Race was held on Cheese Hill, Anderson Road, Eltham, on March 27, 2010, starting at 12.30pm. Oh what a hill it is!!!!

Looking Down Chesse Hill in Eltham prior to the race

Alex Ballentyne with on e of the Cheeses to be rolled

on the way up with the cheese

in the yellow Shaun McCarthy in the red Mayor Ross Dunlop, in the top hat Alex Ballentyne

womans open event

mens open event

mens open event... they beat the cheese!

HIgh School Girls event

spectators at the top of Cheese Hill

spectators before the race

what a view!

10kg of Gouda after its roll down the hill

winners of the best dressed team - Eltham fire brigade

Best dressed male

time for prizegiving....

Judith Rodgers Chairperson of the Eltham business assoc and Wags from More FM

Race winners Primary: Meg Cook, and Primary race 2 Benjamin Shelford 
Secondary school winners Demi Barr  and Luke Dean
 Open Race winners Erena Hilman and Daniel Gut