It’s been ‘brutal’ but ‘great’
Jo Lynch transformed R Tucker Thompson Trust, leading it from amateur status to professional success
Jo Lynch has been the chief executive of the R Tucker Thompson Trust for the past three years and, in that time, has hauled the organisation from being quasi-amateur to fully professional.
She has obtained sponsorships and employed a team that now numbers 15. She has orchestrated training partnerships with Te Tai Tokerau QRC and Outward Bound and the trust won a business award recognising its social impact.
“It’s been a brutal three years but I’m leaving it in good shape,” Lynch said.
“Catherine Langford is our new CE [chief executive]. She has worked for the Ministry for the Environment so she will be great.”
In January this year, Lynch went to the Antarctic for a month on board a ship as education manager. Her job was to organise 25 experts in their field to deliver lectures to the rest of the ship’s passengers.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, she said.
In leaving the Tucker job, Lynch is not leaving the sea as she is sailing to remote places similar to last year when she sailed to the Santa Cruz Islands in the Solomon Group and went to Vanuatu and New Caledonia. She is using this year’s trip to take a break until she feels rejuvenated.
When Lynch departs that boat she flies to Australia to work for an organisation called The Red Earth.
“For 10 days I will take young people to live with the indigenous Aboriginals of Cape York with the twin purposes that is helps the economics of those communities and gives the young a connection with those communities so they understand more about the culture.”
In September she is sailing on the three-masted Dutch schooner, Oosterschelde, the tall ship that’s tracing the journey of Charles Darwin’s Beagle. She is on the leg from Fiji to Whangārei.
Whatever she chooses to do next, it is a safe bet it will have the element of being outside the ordinary.
R Tucker Thompson Sailing Trust chief executive Jo Lynch is embarking on sailing adventures of her own.
Bubble bubble and toil
Around Kerikeri, Keith Earl is known as “The Bubble Man” because he produces big bubbles, small bubbles and in-between bubbles at parties, schools and weddings.
Earl has been doing bubbles for 10 years. He developed it just for fun and then thought he would take it out into the community.
“Who doesn’t like bubbles?” he asked. “I developed them into a giant bubble that a child could stand in and actually be in a bubble.”
When Earl started to put kids in bubbles the look on their faces was motivation. At a school for special education, he let the children have a go at creating the bubbles themselves and after 15 minutes there were hundreds of bubbles in the air.
“There was laughter and smiles everywhere, they were so happy, and that is priceless.”
Earl has passed on the bubble recipe to a friend so the activity will not be lost to Kerikeri. His “toil” comes in the form of picking up rubbish.
After a career in the Parachute Regiment (UK) Earl is a regular walker, three hours a day, and it annoyed him that nothing was being done about the rubbish lying around.
He said over the years he thinks things have got better and, since he and his wife are moving to Kumeu to be near to be closer to family, he has even passed on the rubbish collection duties to a couple of friends so that will continue as well.
Kingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award
The Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award was launched in August of 2020. It is a biennial national competition where emerging Māori artists create portraits of their tūpuna (ancestors).
The awards and subsequent nationwide travelling exhibition showcase the talent and expertise of emerging Māori artists through works created with a wide variety of visual artistic mediums.
Te Kōngahu Museum of Waitangi Gallery is the latest museum to have the honour of exhibiting the Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award 2023.
The exhibition features the 2023 winning portraiture by Stevie Houkāmau (Ngāti Poru, Te Whanaua-Apanui). He used clay, paint, feathers, sealer, powder and coated wire to create the piece which is called Kia Whakatōmuri te haere whakamua 2022.
Waitangi Treaty Grounds head of curatorial and learning Chanel Clarke is pleased to bring this exhibition to the Treaty Grounds for Northland audiences and international visitors.
“After hosting the Kı¯ngitanga over Waitangi week and ngā iwi o te motu, it is fitting to carry on the conversations with these thoughtprovoking works by our Māori creatives from across Aotearoa that honour their ancestral whakapapa.”
Waitangi Treaty Grounds curator Owen Taituha said the exhibition is a welcomed addition to Te Kōngahu Museum of Waitangi, helping to tell the stories that have shaped a nation.
“The artworks provide our visitors an alternate lens through which Māori narratives can be experienced and understood with each piece providing a unique story.”
The Kiingi Tuheitia Portraiture Award Exhibition will be open to the public until August 11.
Business club presenting to the public
The Northland Women’s Club is holding a business meeting on May 24 at the Tipsy Oyster restaurant in Paihia where four women will be presenting their experience and ideas in business.
Myjanne Jensen ( Ngāpuhi/Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa) is the former editor of The Northland Age. She founded Jensen Media in October 2023 and will talk on helping people successfully work with the media.
Rachael Elliot Jones is a beauty therapist from the UK who now resides in Kerikeri. She advocates for the “power of the brow” through her home clinic.
Angela Stone is a fashion stylist, model, author, and health and fitness advocate. She offers courses in fashion styling, exercise and nutrition.
Grace Falwasser is a Māori entrepreneur who founded Ae Botanicals in Northland. She draws on her father’s teachings in natural practices and food for healing. Her business focuses on sustainability and zero waste practices.
The Northland Women’s Club was founded in 2023 and grew rapidly to reach 190 members in the first 12 months. Its first event was a charity ball held at the Kerikeri Golf Club which raised $61,655 for the Breast Cancer Foundation of New Zealand. The club also hosts quarterly networking luncheons and regular pop-up support events.
The next event is a charity ball at The Duke of Marlborough Hotel, Russell, on August 17 with the theme “Gangsters and Flappers”.
It will raise funds for the Heart Foundation. Everyone who attends will get a goody bag. Tickets are $287.50 each.
Vanessa Bennett, a co-founder of the club, said eight women a day die of a heart-related disease.
“The money we raise will stay in the north and we will choose some smaller charities in the north to support this year.”
Myjanne Jensen, former editor of The Northland Age.