Ko te timatanga o te matauranga
Ko te wehi ki a lhowa
Maungarongo ki te mata o te whenua
Whakaaro nui ki te tangata

Tēnā koe e te tau ruamano mā ono. Ngā mihi manaaki ki a koutou, ngā kaipānui, mō ō koutou kaha ki te tautoko mai i te kaupapa, arā, ko te reo. Nō reira, e te iwi, kia kaha rā ki te kōrero i tō tātou reo rangatira. Kia ora tātou katoa.

Our Mā Te Reo Project Advisor over the last year, Maihi Makiha, has moved on to an exciting new job as a Youth Educator for Te Puawai Tapu, a Māori Sexual Health provider based here in Wellington. The position is a dream for Maihi, who always wanted to work in this field. While we are sad that he has moved, we are glad that he is following his dream. We are certain that many of you will miss having a kōrero to Maihi and his friendly helpful approach towards helping you with your Mā Te Reo project enquiries.

Our competent temp, Anna Collins, filled in for us over the last couple of months while we searched for a suitable replacement for Maihi (not an easy task!). Clayton Reiri began as Mā Te Reo Advisor on 4 September after moving from Hamilton, and is quickly settling into and coming to grips with the job. Clayton's iwi affiliations are Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne ki Wairarapa and Ngāti Porou. He brings a broad range of experience to the role including working for a time with Māori Affairs and ETSA (predecessor of Skill NZ and TEC), where he gained skills in contract management.

Nau mai, haere mai Clayton.

Clayton T. Reiri

At the time of our last e-pānui we informed you that there were still 15 projects awaiting completion. There are now 9. The providers of all of these projects have been contacted by Mā Te Reo recently, and we are working to bring these projects to conclusion as soon as possible.
 

A total of 258 applications requesting approximately $9.5 million were received this Round. 158 were approved and 108 were declined. As has been our experience in every Round, the applications flooded in during the last week, particularly the last two days of the Round. The Round is open for six weeks, and by the beginning of the sixth week we only had 60 applications. We've checked back over our database and offer congratulations and a small prize to the first five people (interestingly all from Te Tai Tokerau) to complete their applications early in the Round.

•  May Nicholson
•  Kelly Scott
•  Pare Nathan
•  Pereniki Tauhara
•  Paula Pirihi

Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa kua tukuna moata ōu tono! Your prize is on its way to you.

Pleasantly there was a significant reduction in the number of hard-copy applications received. Ka mau te wehi! It is much easier and safer for applicants to apply directly on-line. A number of you managed to apply in the wrong category, and while you weren't disadvantaged solely for this, it is important to get the category right. If you are unsure about which category to apply under, give us a call.

The revised budget section resulted in better quality information with regards to the costs of your project.

Handy hint - something to keep in mind for next year, Te Ropū Tautoko wants to clearly see what your group/your own contribution towards your project is. This doesn't necessarily have to be in dollars but can be 'in kind'.

All applicants were informed of the outcome of their applications during June/July. A small number (under ten) requested further feedback on their declined applications and letters were sent to them by the Chair of Te Rōpū Tautoko, Haami Piripi. Another small number (5) regretfully declined the offers of funding made to them. The majority of all contracts have now been drafted and sent to the successful applicants. While an improvement on last year, it can still take a long time for us to get you all signed up and underway with your projects. We thought it might be useful to repeat the following piece from our September 2005 e-pānui for those of you who have just been through the process of signing up for a Mā Te Reo contract for the first time or are still working through the process.

As with most things the first time is always the hardest. This certainly is the case for first time Mā Te Reo providers. We realise that our processes can be quite baffling the first time around. However, when you've been through the process once and become familiar with our requirements, providers are usually away and by far the majority manage to complete their projects without too much hassle. The team believe that it would be useful to spend some time taking you through the contracting process in this issue, and we hope that even our regular providers might find something of use in the following. This information is not meant to replace, but to complement, that contained in the application material and various covering letters.

Once your application is approved for funding, you are sent a letter indicating the amount you have been approved and a formal offer of funding is made. If the amount is less than that requested, you are given a brief explanation of the reason for the reduction. Attached to the letter is an Acceptance of Offer of Funding Form. We ask you to sign and return that form to us, along with two references, and if possible a revised budget, based on the amount approved (not required in cases of fully funded projects). Please note that approved amounts are inclusive of GST.

The references should (unless agreed otherwise with the Mā Te Reo Administration Team) be from those two people you nominated in your application. Remember also that if you are running an Ātaarangi Programme, one of your references must be from Te Ātaarangi. Please note that all references must be signed.

Once we have received both your acceptance form and two signed references, a draft contract/funding agreement, based on the information contained in your application and any comments made during assessment by Te Rōpū Tautoko is drafted and sent to you to consider. In many cases, you will be happy with the agreement as is. If that is the case, we ask you to have both copies of the contract signed and witnessed and returned to us along with the other Milestone One requirements as set out in Schedule 2 (the second to last page of the contract), plus your invoice for the first Milestone payment, and a verified bank deposit slip. Once we have received everything, the first Milestone is met, payment is made, one copy of the signed contract is returned to you and the project is underway. Mama noaiho!

If in any doubt, just give Clayton or Nerissa a call on 0800 628-373 (0800 MĀ TE REO). Again, significant delays occur when you send back just your contracts, or in some cases just one contract, without the other Milestone One documentation.
 

In some cases you may have minor changes that you would like made to the agreement. For example you might need to push the original dates of your wānanga/event out due to the time delay in confirming funding. If this is the case, Nerissa will ask you to make the changes to both copies of the contract, initial them, and return them to us, once again with all the other Milestone One requirements and your first Milestone invoice. Haami Piripi (Chairman, Mā Te Reo) will also initial the changes when he signs the contracts for Mā Te Reo, and a copy will be returned to you to keep.

If however, you wish to discuss more substantial changes to the funding agreement, these will need to be negotiated and once agreed to new funding agreements will be sent to you. You do need to have good reason for wanting to substantially change your project and need to remember that the amount approved is based on your original application and that is not usually negotiable.

Also, what we have found occurring more frequently this Round, is that many of you, particularly in the Wānanga Reo and Language Programmes and Classes funding categories, want to downsize your project to correspond with the reduced level of funding. For instance, you might decide you are going to run only three wānanga reo instead of four. On the surface, this might seem logical, however, Te Rōpū Tautoko, to be fair to all applicants in these categories, now uses a benchmarked formula based on duration (no. of days) and predicted number of participants. Therefore, we cannot always agree to a simple reduction to your project. We will certainly endeavour to work something out with you however. For example, we could agree that you run fewer wānanga reo, if you can guarantee a higher level of participants.

These are the main points for you to note, for those of you that have made it though, congratulations, for those of you, not quite there yet, kia kaha tonu. Just remember we want to get your contract underway as much as you do.

As those of you who are underway with your Round Six contracts will be aware, when we send your copy of the contract back to you, we are enclosing a copy of the template (Final Monitoring Report) that you will be required to complete and send back to us upon completion of your project. We thought that doing this will enable you to familiarise yourselves with the type of information you need to be collecting about your project as it progresses. Completion of all sections of this report is mandatory, and we are unable to make final project payments until this report (as well as other reporting requirements of course) is complete. This change came about as part of our move to ensure that we are collecting good self reported data about the outcomes of Mā Te Reo funded projects.

Another change to our processes this year relates to projects in the ICT and Language Resources categories. Every provider that we fund in these categories is being asked to ensure that their ICT application or language resource is trialled with a sample of the target audience at prototype stage, and to report to us on the results of that trial, including any modifications that will be made to the resource as a result. This change is a direct result of the findings from the language resource research/evaluation project conducted 2004/05.

On-line Reporting

When Mā Te Reo was established and the website/on-line application system was established, provision was made for applicants to complete their Milestone Reports and Final Monitoring Reports on-line. There is also provision for applicants to attach any other documents - i.e. your invoices, draft reports, plans, etc. However very few of you choose to use this facility, choosing in most cases to email or post all documentation to us. We would love for more of you to log-in to the Mā Te Reo website, go to the Milestone in question and enter your reports directly into the system. We would be more than happy to step you through the process, which is also outlined in the system generated milestone reminders which are sent to you. Reporting directly on-line means that we don't have to manually enter your reports into the system.

Handy hint - Try reporting directly on-line. It’s easy and will save all of us time.

In our February 2006 issue, we profiled the Waima Topu B Trust project and referred in error, to Mahurehure as a 'Te Rarawa based hapū'. We apologise profusely for this error. Just for the record, Te Mahurehure is a hapū of Ngāpuhi.

2005/06 Research/Evaluation Project

As many of you are aware, for the last six months we have been busy undertaking our second in-house evaluation project - this time looking at language planning projects funded by Mā Te Reo. The first evaluation project conducted in 2004/5 investigated the funding of Māori language resources by Mā Te Reo.

The aims of the language planning evaluation were:

The evaluation comprised a sample of 39 providers who have been funded over the last five funding rounds under the language planning category. We had the opportunity to meet with a number of these providers during interviews for the evaluation project. Nerissa conducted fieldwork interviews in the Wellington region, the Wairarapa and Whangārei. Jasmine completed interviews in Waikato and Te Tau Ihu. Unfortunately, we had to complete the remainder of interviews with providers via the telephone or email.

Thank you to all those providers who participated in the evaluation project by way of completing interviews and survey questions.

Mā Te Reo has contracted Kateraina Pipi (FEM Ltd) to conduct an evaluation of the Kura Reo funding category. Basically we want to collect evidence about the outcomes we are getting from our investment in the Kura Reo funding category and how we might better support these projects in the future. The evaluation will run until June 2007. Kateraina has the full support of the Kura Reo and she is taking very much a collaborative approach working alongside those involved in the running of the Kura Reo. We will report on the outcomes of the evaluation once the project is completed.

Mā Te Reo Events

Mā Te Reo funded a number of Matariki based events this year. An overview of two of these Matariki events; one in Auckland and the other in Wellington follows:
 

Pou Kapua Matariki Celebration 2006

A Matariki celebration was held in Manukau, Auckland on 24th June 2006. One of the highlights from this event was a ceremony announcing Hinewehi Mohi as the 'Matariki - Whetū o Te Tau', or 'Star of the Year', by Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Māori - the Māori Language Commission.

Te Taura Whiri Chief Executive Haami Piripi says Hinewehi was chosen because she exemplifies the spirit of Matariki. "Te Whetū o Tau has to reflect the qualities and the culture of Matariki as a foundation for developing emotional, spiritual and physical well-being," says Haami.

Approximately 800 people attended the event, which also included a celebration dinner and a wide range of entertainment including Ardijah and Whirimako Black.
 

A Matariki event was also held in Wellington on 7th July 2006. This event was attended by over 500 participants and was utilised as a forum to promote te reo Māori to a wide range of audiences from the Wellington and surrounding regions. Iwi representation at the event included Ngāti Toa, Te Atiawa, Ngāti Raukawa and Rangitāne. Entertainment included a diverse array of artists and performers including Brannigan Kaa, kapa haka, and interactive reo Māori sessions. 

Māori Language Week Awards 2006

It was great to see a couple of our Mā Te Reo providers enter the Māori Language Week Awards this year. Congratulations to the Raukawa Māori Trust Board for winning the Community section and also the overall Supreme Award. The Trust Board launched its Raukawa Reo Strategy, 'Whakareia Te Kakara o Te Hinu Raukawa' during Māori Language Week, a fitting culmination to many months of hard work putting the plan in place as a basis for the future reo Māori development of the iwi. The Trust Board, with funding assistance from Mā Te Reo, is now working with its marae to help them develop their individual marae-based language plans.

(From left) Charlie Tepana (Raukawa Trust Board), Hon. Parekura Horomia, and Tangiwai Amopiu (Raukawa Trust Board).

Congratulations also to Te Rūnanga of Ngāiterangi who were a finalist in the community category. Their entry was for the hīkoi staff made up the sacred maunga, Mauao, speaking only in te reo Māori. Ka Mau te Wehi! Ngāiterangi are a current Round Five Mā Te Reo provider, running Wānanga Reo and Kura Reo ā-Iwi.

(From left) Reweti Te Mete, Liz Ngatai, Hauata Palmer, Kelly Lovett, and Lincoln Smith (Ngāiterangi Iwi Incorporated Society representatives).

We urge you all to think about entering the Awards in 2007.