Tuwhare Trustees

Jeanette Wikaira, Trust Chair (Nga­puhi, Ngati Puken­ga, Ngati Tamatera)

Jeanette is Otepoti based and has been on the Tuwhare Trust for over a decade. Jeanette brings to the Trust a wealth of Board expe­ri­ence; strong iwi rela­tion­ships and a strong net­work of con­nec­tions across the lit­er­ary and arts sec­tors in Otepoti and Aotearoa. She has exec­u­tive lev­el strate­gic lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence togeth­er with work expe­ri­ence in the arts and cul­tur­al her­itage sec­tors. Jeanette first met Hone in the 1970s when he vis­it­ed her pri­ma­ry school. Local­ly based in Otepoti, Jeanette pro­vides man­aa­ki to manuhiri vis­it­ing the Crib.

Robert Tuwhare, Trustee (Nga­puhi, Scottish)

Rob is based in Tama­ki Makau­rau and has been on the Tuwhare Trust since its incep­tion in 2010. Rob is the son of Hone Tuwhare and is the lit­er­ary execu­tor and whanau rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Trust.  A car­pen­ter by trade, he was the dri­ving force behind the restora­tion of the Tuwhare Crib in Kaka Point. He is a writer and musi­cian and is deeply con­nect­ed to the lit­er­ary and arts com­mu­ni­ty across Aotearoa. Rob holds the whaka­pa­pa con­nec­tion between the work of the Trust and the Tuwhare whanau.

Stan Scott, Trustee

Stan is based in Turan­ga Nui a Kiwa (Gis­borne) and has been on the Tuwhare Trust for over a decade. He is a licensed builder and has spent most of his career ren­o­vat­ing and restor­ing vil­las, bun­ga­lows and his­toric build­ings. Stan works with Mitre 10 deliv­er­ing the nation­al Mitre 10 DIY pro­gramme.  He project-man­aged and led the work of the restora­tion of the Tuwhare crib and brings to the Trust build­ing and busi­ness expe­ri­ence and a net­work of busi­ness rela­tion­ships across Aotearoa. Stan dis­cov­ered Hone’s work at school and pub­lished his own book of poet­ry at age 17.

Mark Mck­eev­er, Trustee

Mark is local­ly based in Kaka Point and has been on the Trust since 2020. Mark is an Engi­neer by trade and works and lives with his whanau in Kaka Point. He is a respect­ed mem­ber of the local com­mu­ni­ty and sits on the Board of the local pri­ma­ry school. Mark brings to the Trust the day-to-day oper­a­tional over­sight of the Tuwhare crib and main­tains the Trust’s close con­nec­tion to the Kaka Point com­mu­ni­ty. Mark also has the impor­tant role of pro­vid­ing man­aa­ki to manuhiri vis­it­ing the Crib.

Mary Wells, Trustee

Mary is based in Tama­ki Makau­rau and has been involved with the Trust since its incep­tion in 2010 and as a Trustee since 2020. Mary is a Direc­tor of Taku­tai Ltd; Taku­tai gen­er­ous­ly assist­ed with the ini­tial pur­chase of the Tuwhare crib. Mary and her hus­band Peter have been long term com­mit­ted patrons of the Tuwhare Trust. As Trust admin­is­tra­tor, Mary brings to the Trust a life­time of busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion expe­ri­ence and a phil­an­thropic com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing the well­be­ing of com­mu­ni­ties through­out Aotearoa.

Governor-General, Dame Cindy Kiro — Patron of the Tuwhare Trust

Dame Cindy Kiro (Nga­puhi, Ngati Hine, Ngati Kahu) began her five-year term as Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al of New Zealand on 21 Octo­ber 2021 (Hone Tuwhare’s birth­day). The Tuwhare Trust is very priv­i­leged to have Dame Cindy Kiro as our Patron.

Dame Alcyion Cyn­thia (Cindy) Kiro was born in Whangarei, North­land, in 1958, the eldest of six chil­dren. She is of Nga­puhi, Ngati Hine, Ngati Kahu and British descent. She has a lev­el of flu­en­cy in te reo Maori. Dame Cindy com­plet­ed her pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school­ing in Auck­land. She went on to be the first per­son in her fam­i­ly to achieve ter­tiary qual­i­fi­ca­tions: a PhD in Social Pol­i­cy and an MBA (Exec) in Busi­ness Administration.

Much of Dame Cindy’s career has been in the ter­tiary edu­ca­tion sec­tor, where she became a dis­tin­guished researcher and held lead­er­ship roles at Massey Uni­ver­si­ty, Vic­to­ria Uni­ver­si­ty Wellington/Te Heren­ga Waka and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Auck­land. While at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Auck­land she was Direc­tor of the Starpath Project, which inves­ti­gat­ed the impacts of socio-eco­nom­ic sta­tus on edu­ca­tion­al achieve­ment in New Zealand.

Her pub­lic sec­tor roles have includ­ed Children’s Com­mis­sion­er (the first woman and first Maori to be appoint­ed to the role) mem­ber­ship of the Min­is­te­r­i­al Cross-Sec­tor Forum for the Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion, and Chair of the Wel­fare Expert Advi­so­ry Group. Dame Cindy has had exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the pub­lic health sec­tor, includ­ing a role as Gen­er­al Man­ag­er Fund­ing and Ser­vices Plan­ning and Maori Health for the Auck­land Dis­trict Health Board.

Dame Cindy has also devot­ed time to vol­un­tary and com­mu­ni­ty organ­i­sa­tions, reflect­ing her per­son­al inter­ests in sup­port­ing chil­dren, young peo­ple and dis­ad­van­taged mem­bers of soci­ety. This has includ­ed work on reduc­ing child pover­ty, envi­ron­men­tal caus­es to pro­tect the nat­ur­al world and address­ing fam­i­ly violence.

Pri­or to tak­ing up her role as Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al, Dame Cindy was Chief Exec­u­tive of the Roy­al Soci­ety Te Aparan­gi.  Dame Cindy is the first Maori woman to be appoint­ed as Governor-General.

Dame Cindy was appoint­ed as a Dame Com­pan­ion of the New Zealand Order of Mer­it (DNZM) for ser­vices to child well­be­ing and edu­ca­tion on the New Year 2021 Hon­ours List.

Dame Cindy is mar­ried to Dr Richard Davies, a GP at a low-cost gen­er­al prac­tice.  She is the moth­er of two sons, step-moth­er to two sons, grand­moth­er to two grand­sons, and has a wide extend­ed family.

Previous patrons

2017–2021 — Dame Pat­sy Red­dy, Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al of New Zealand

Dame Pat­sy Red­dy was born in Mata­ma­ta and lived her ear­ly years in Te Akau and then Ming­inui, where her par­ents, Neil and Kay Red­dy, were school teach­ers. Dame Patsy’s pre­vi­ous career was in law, busi­ness, and the pub­lic sec­tor.  Dame Pat­sy has had sig­nif­i­cant involve­ment in the gov­er­nance of cre­ative and char­i­ta­ble organ­i­sa­tions, includ­ing New Zealand Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val of the Arts, Vic­to­ria Uni­ver­si­ty Foun­da­tion, Vic­to­ria Uni­ver­si­ty Art Col­lec­tion Trust, Spark Art Trust, Welling­ton Jazz Fes­ti­val Trust, Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra Foun­da­tion, and Sky City Com­mu­ni­ty Trust. She was a found­ing Trustee and advi­so­ry board mem­ber for New Zealand Glob­al Women and has chaired the Board of the New Zealand Film Archive

2012–2016 — Lieu­tenant Gen­er­al The Right Hon Sir Jer­ry Mateparae GNZM QSO, Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al of New Zealand

Sir Jer­ry Mat­a­parae was born in Whanganui in 1954 and went to Castle­cliff School, Ruther­ford Inter­me­di­ate and Wan­ganui High School. He is from Ngati Tuwhare­toa and Ngati Kahun­gunu. He also has links to Tuhoe and tribes in the upper Whanganui. He is New Zealand’s sec­ond Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al of Maori descent.

“Hone Tuwhare was a sig­nif­i­cant cul­tur­al influ­ence for us all because he expressed his thoughts about things in ways that could be under­stood by New Zealan­ders. The Hone Tuwhare Char­i­ta­ble Trust is per­pet­u­at­ing his mem­o­ry through a fan­tas­tic ini­tia­tive to ren­o­vate his crib, so that oth­er artists can have a space to pro­vide insights into their own expe­ri­ences of this won­der­ful country.

I felt very priv­i­leged to be asked to vis­it the crib and to turn the first sod for the project. I am delight­ed to sup­port the Trust’s vision and wish them every success.”

Found­ing Patron — Sir Paul Reeves (1932 — 2011)

The Hone Tuwhare Char­i­ta­ble Trust was proud that Sir Paul Reeves was our patron from 2010 – 2011. Paul said he sup­port­ed the trust as he was “a long-time admir­er of the work of Hone Tuwhare and com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing a liv­ing memo­r­i­al of this great man”. Sir Paul Reeves was Bish­op of Auck­land, Arch­bish­op of New Zealand, Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al, Angli­can Observ­er at the Unit­ed Nations New York and was Chan­cel­lor of AUT Uni­ver­si­ty from 2005 until he passed away in August 2011. He will be sad­ly missed.

Top Pho­to: Hone’s Crib and Trust Mem­bers, Kaka Point Octo­ber 2019.

Below Pho­to: Edward Elli­son, Sir Jer­ry Mateparae, Jeanette Wikaira, Rob Tuwhare, Kaka Point Octo­ber 2014.