Twenty four Pakeha women from around New Zealand gathered for two days to learn from some outstanding women leaders, and from each other in Hillsborough, Auckland, November 2020
Bishop Ellie Sanderson, assistant Bishop of Wellington attended for the whole time and provided an inspiring story, laced with deep spirituality and real life experience.
Ms Heather McCrae, principal of Diocesan School for Girls spoke of following her own instincts in pursuing both leadership and vision. Her years working and innovating in schools in New Zealand and overseas provided her with a strong foundation for leading a large girls’ school in the 21st century.
The Revd Dr Sue Burns showed us the way leadership is conferred and acquired, revealing the systems which often work against women. She provided analysis and tools for perceiving the currents of social interaction and of moving with those currents in a positive way.
The Revd Carole Hughes shared her experience on the international arena, where the three tikanga church model provided an insightful basis for studies in gender violence.
Our ‘inspiration from the top’ was paralleled with plenty of time to draw inspiration from each other and from within. We frequently gathered in small groups in order to connect our new learnings with our current work and ministry situations.
It was great for younger clergy women across the country to share experience, and for lay women and more experiencedpeople to caucus and support and inspire.
We all loved Pecha Kucha…
This is a highly entertaining way to get to know and appreciate each other in a creative way. Pecha Kucha is a story telling format from the Japanese word for ‘chit chat’.
PechaKucha celebrates the unique stories we all have to tell. Look up pechakucha.co.nz to get an idea. You will see that PechaKucha Nights give a platform to a wide range of people, to speak on a diversity of topics. Presenters share creative work or speak about passion topics as travels, research projects, student projects, hobbies, collections, or other interests.
For this hui we trialled a mini pechakucha.
Participants had three minutes, maximum, and up to 9 slides to talk about/share something we loved doing, or are passionate/enthusiastic about. Topics included:
- Chickens
- Wonder Woman
- Hildegard of Bingen
- Landscape of the Marlborough Sounds
- Climate Change and Conservation
- Horses and CPE
- Foster children
From the evaluations, people loved the theological reflections, the liturgies, the educational opportunities, the exposure to new ideas, the support of others in planning the next steps of their ministry, the networking.
