COMMITTEE chair Aunty Ginger Te Kanawa is thrilled with the combination oven at Tokikapu Marae, Waitomo Caves - just one aspect of its major facilities facelift. Photo: Sigrid Christiansen
Twenty chickens at once – that’s how many the new combi oven at Tokikapu Marae can cook, according to proud committee chair Aunty Ginger Te Kanawa.
“And you can do five trays of roast in the time it would take to cook one,” she said.
The marae, near Waitomo Caves, opened a new wharekai earlier this month.
Its grand opening, featuring a pōwhiri (welcome) and hākari (feast) was a “fantastic occasion”, attracting around 400 people.
The wharekai was given the name, Te Whare Toko-I-Te Ora Tuarua.
“We saw it as a celebration for not just ourselves but our whole whānau. Because we received a lot of support from all of them, and that’s the biggest thing.”
It took weeks to get ready.
“Our trust got together every Sunday, every week for months, to put together the celebrations.
“We had a lot of help from family before the day – getting our grounds ready,” she said.
“Our trust put it together. We had a budget for the day and people started donating food. We started organising the food two weeks in advance.”
The wharekai is not the only new addition to Tokikapu.
It had been the committee’s “dream” to facelift the facilities, in a wide-reaching project starting around 2016, Ginger said.
“We wanted it to be better for our younger ones going forward.
“We started with an ablution block, and also put solar panels in at the same time. And a wastewater system – we did all of that.”
The old concrete toilets built by the Green family had been modern in their day, she said.
“They served our marae well for years and years until the new block was built.”
The new ablutions block is digitally controlled – with timed five-minute showers and other environmental innovations.
