We will remember them
Ka maumahara tonu tātou ki a rātou
New Zealand celebrates 102 years of the Poppy Appeal in 2024, with the Poppy campaign running throughout April and Poppy Day, the RSA’s street collection, held last Friday, April 19.
The first Poppy Appeal in 1922 netted £13,166 – poppies were sold for one shilling each. Today’s poppies are sold for a gold coin donation and a million poppies on average are sold each year.
Poppy Day is the RSA’s main fundraiser; donations collected help the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association improve the health and well-being outcomes for New Zealand's veterans of all ages.
The RSA was established in 1916 with the aim of taking care of New Zealand’s veterans and their families as soldiers returned from Gallipoli. While today’s soldiers face different challenges, the RSA’s support to them and their whanau continues.
Get involved
There are many ways to get involved with the RSA. You can join as a member of a local RSA (https://www.rsa.org.nz/findan-rsa/find-a-local-rsa/ ) and get involved in your community. Or you can join the online RSA ( https://www.rsa.org.nz/find-anrsa/rsa-online/ ) an emerging community of like-minded individuals with veteran support at its core.
You don't always need to reach for your wallet to donate to the RSA, your time is just as valuable. Local RSAs are always looking for volunteers to spend some time helping them out.
If you would like to volunteer, contact your local RSA. If you have free time and are physically able, let them know what you can do to help. Mowing lawns? Driving a veteran to an appointment? Stacking firewood? The gift of a little time can mean so much to someone in need.
Donate
And of course - you can donate to the RSA
(https://www.rsa.org.nz/support-us/ donate/) Your donation could help fund a cataract operation, medical care, mobility assistance, help with school fees, hearing adis, equine therapy, emotional support including trauma counselling, and treatment for post-traumatic stress, or companion dogs.
Every day the RSA supports veterans throughout New Zealand, and the demand for its services has never been higher.
Since 1990 New Zealand has created over 60,500 veterans of military service, and there are around 140,000 living veterans across New Zealand.
Support offered includes advice and guidance, advocacy services and financial support to improve accessibility in accommodation, enable access to mental health services, get medical conditions treated, and ensure children and whānau of the fallen and injured are looked after.
It also provide assistance navigating services available through other agencies.
A brief history
The Anzac legend began on April 25, 1915, when around 20,000 soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) landed under fire on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey.
For eight long months, New Zealand troops, alongside those from Australia and other allied nations, battled harsh conditions and Ottoman forces desperately fighting to protect their homeland.
By the time the campaign ended, more than 130,000 soldiers had died: at least 87,000 Ottoman and 44,000 Allied soldiers, including 2779 New Zealanders.
Gallipoli was New Zealand’s first major battle of World War One and the country was deeply affected by the massive loss of life and the return home of the injured. New Zealanders have marked the landings at Gallipoli since news of the event first reached our shores. Over time there have been changes in the way that Anzac Day is commemorated, reflecting the changing features and concerns of society.
Today, Anzac Day promotes a sense of unity and is a time for the nation to pay respects and acknowledge the many thousands of military personnel who are serving or have served, and who are called upon to support New Zealand in times of war, conflict, and disaster.
As time has passed the meaning of ‘Anzac’ has changed too. Once used solely to refer to those who fought as part of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, today it represents the characteristics that are seen as important to New Zealanders and those serving in the New Zealand Defence Forces, including courage, commitment, comradeship and integrity.
The leaves are golden and pumpkins are ripe. These two pumpkin recipes make for a cosy night in, and can both be made vegetarian.
Recipe: Serves:
Sarah Hobbs 4 500g butternut pumpkin, peeled, deseeded, cut into 3cm cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
¼ cup pine nuts
1 litre chicken or vegetable stock
⅓ cup sage leaves
1 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1½ cups arborio rice
½ cup dry white wine
½ cup finely grated parmesan
¼ cup mascarpone
Preheat the oven to 200°C. Arrange the pumpkin over a bakingpaper-lined oven tray and drizzle with half the oil. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown and tender. Scatter the pine nuts over the pumpkin and bake for a further 2 minutes or until toasted. Remove from the oven.
Meanwhile, bring the stock to the boil in a saucepan over high heat. Reduce the heat to low and keep at a gentle simmer.
Heat the remaining oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the sage leaves, in batches, and fry for 1 minute or until crisp. Transfer to a plate.
Add the onion and garlic to the pan and fry, stirring, for 5 minutes or until softened. Add the rice and stir for 1 minute or until translucent. Add the wine and cook, stirring constantly, until completely absorbed. Add a ladleful of hot stock and stir until completely absorbed. Continue to add the stock, a ladle at a time, stirring constantly and allowing the liquid to be absorbed before adding the next ladle.
Cook for 20 minutes or until the risotto is tender yet firm to the bite and creamy. Remove from the heat. Add half the pumpkin to the risotto and lightly crush it with the back of a spoon. Add the remaining pumpkin and stir gently to combine.
Stir in the pine nuts, parmesan, mascarpone and half the sage. Taste and season.
Spoon the risotto into bowls then top with the remaining sage and serve.
o you ever get the feeling time is racing by?
That the summer – which seemed to stretch on forever in childhood – now passes in a blink?
That it’s April and you find yourself saying you don’t know where the first months of 2024 have gone?
The comforting news is that, as they age, most people experience the feeling that time is picking up the pace, at times feeling the weeks, months, years are starting to blur together.
It’s an illusion, of course. Time doesn’t pick favourites, we each have 60 seconds in a minute, 24 hours in a day and so on.
But psychology researchers agree the feeling that time is speeding up or slowing down is real. One theory is that ageing slows our brains down, that we process less information which makes time seem to speed up.
However, a more attractive idea (at least to anyone over 50) is that our perception of time is influenced by our perspective, memories and experiences.
Cindy Lustig, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan, says this: For an 8-year-old, a week is a big portion of their life. But for an 80-year-old, a week is a much smaller proportion which contributes to the feeling that it’s flown by.
She says when you’re 80, life probably hasn’t changed much from when you were 79 or 78.
And when you do similar things from day to day and week to week, time blurs and feels like it’s passing more quickly.
The other factor is that when we’re young, much of what we experience is novel – —new, firsts or opportunities to learn. At 8, 18, 28, even 38, we’re continuing to see and experience many new things. There are many landmark events (good and bad) involving work and career, relationships, travel, social activities like concerts, starting and growing families and children’s milestones. Those make the days feel more interesting, memorable.
But as we grow older, more of our experiences become routine or “been there, done that” – so our memory content shrinks, or has less rich input.
The reason all this is so important is that it affects our overall measure of life satisfaction – at any age and stage.
So is it possible to reverse the trend, to feel like we’ve put the brakes on time so we can savour our experiences?
Yes, if we work on it. But let’s remember that not everyone wants time to slow down. Some people have very good reasons to make it speed up.
I recall a client stuck in a miserable marriage telling me having more time with her partner was her idea of hell. The days already dragged. So there’s that.
But for those who want to savour the journey, here are some ideas to help.
Learning nourishes our minds, it keeps our brains active, it makes us interested – and interesting. Have you noticed the most alive people are the most curious? There’s a reason for that.
The older you get, the harder it is for life to surprise you. And the easier it is to stick with what you enjoy and avoid things that feel hard or stressful. Doing new, exciting and sometimes hard things are what make our days feel different, which sets them apart in our minds.
Routines help to anchor us and provide certainty in a chaotic world. But if life is all routine, it becomes boring and the days blur together. Shake up your routines when you can.
We’re often told to say no more often so we don’t burn out. But saying yes can lead you in unexpected, even wonderful, directions. So think before you turn away. Say yes to random invitations or things that (slightly) scare you.
Make the dull aspects of your life vivid. Look people in the eye. Have great conversations. Dress up. Lighten up. Laugh. Have fun. It might not slow time down, but it’ll hugely improve the trip.