ARTS TRAIL HIGHLIGHTS DIVERSITY OF ART IN KĀPITI – photos here

The two Kāpiti Arts Trail weekends proved as popular as ever with locals and visitors to the district.

Waikanae resident Trevor Pringle says it was very interesting to see what artists are creating around the district.

“There’s such a huge range of art here,” he says. “We started off in Ōtaki on the first weekend and worked our way through various sites heading south. On the second weekend, we started in Paekākāriki and went north. It was a very enjoyable event.”

There were 62 studio artists, 19 artists in four hubs and 13 galleries that took part in this year’s trail.

Mike and Judy Page, of Summerstone Ceramics in Ōtaki, had an estimated 900 visitors to their studio on the first day of the trail and about 1,500 visitors in total over both weekends.

“It was a fabulous event. We had visitors from Ireland, Canada and Australia, as well as lots from different parts of New Zealand,” Judy says.

“After working towards the trail all year, it was great hearing people say they loved my work and buying pieces. I also enjoyed explaining my art – I had a lot of questions about the process I go through to create my works.”

People who fill out our feedback survey at www.kapiticoast.govt.nz/arts-trail go in the draw to win a $200 voucher for an artwork of their choice featured on the trail!

LIBRARY COMPETITION INSPIRES READING OF DIFFERENT GENRES – photos here

A Raumati Beach teenager, who won the Kāpiti Coast District Libraries’ reading challenge, says the competition encouraged her to pick out books she wouldn’t normally choose.

The competition ran during September and October and involved people completing any number of ten reading challenges and writing a review of their book(s).

Kāpiti College student Laura Doyle, 13, took on several challenges including reading a book from her childhood, one she could read in a day and also a sci-fi title for ‘the genre you don’t normally read’ task.

“I do a lot of reading anyway, but saw the challenge as a way to read some different books,” Laura says.

“I was very surprised when I heard I’d won the competition – I’m going to share the prize basket with a friend who also did some challenges.”

Library Community Programmes Co-ordinator Juana Kelsen says more than 150 reviews were entered into the competition.

“We were really pleased with the number of people who participated in the challenge,” she says.

“We wanted to inspire people to diversify their reading and this is exactly what many of them did. This was our first reading competition and we’ll definitely do it again.”

COUNCIL HOSTING FOOD ACT WORKSHOPS FOR BUSINESSES

Kāpiti Coast District Council is hosting a free workshop this month helping business owners get up to speed with the new Food Act.

Ministry of Primary Industries representatives, along with the Council’s Environmental Health team, are running a workshop on Tuesday 29 November from 10am to 12pm.

The workshop will go over an introduction to the Food Act, a session checking what type of regulation applies to each business owner and an ‘Ask the experts’ time to question Council and MPI representatives about their specific business.

At the end of the workshop there is also an opportunity to test resources and give feedback

To register email licence.application@kapiticoast.govt.nz or read about Food Act at mpi.govt.nz/food-act-2014

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