We held our annual general meeting on October 15th, which was a great opportunity to get our board, staff and stakeholders from the education and skills sector together and report back on the work we have been doing in the 2012/2013 financial year.
Our keynote speaker, well-respected Auckland rangatira Papa Rereata Makiha, fascinated the AGM guests with his commentary on the role of ancestral knowledge including the use of stars, the sun, moon and tides, to influence Māori communities.
Papa Rereata works with the Society of Māori Astronomy Research and Tradition (SMART Trust) which is an organisation dedicated to revitalising the role of Mātauranga Māori in modern life.
“From fishing to planting to food gathering and inter-tribal meetings, war, marriage, waka travel, and weather predictions - they were all influenced by star knowledge and a close affinity with the rhythm of our natural world.”
He says SMART’s objective, through research and scientific collaboration, is to revive ancestral knowledge for the next generation and to encourage young people to be proud of the genius of their ancestors’ knowledge of the known and unknown universe.
“The star knowledge that helped guide our ancestors to this land 1500 years ago is an untold marvel of the modern world.”
There were some great tweets coming out of the AGM, with Martin Henry from the PPTA live tweeting the event - thanks Martin for the updates and for your online engagement and support for COMET Auckland. If you want to learn more about COMET Auckland’s work over the last year, and our plans for 2013/2014, then click here to access our annual report.
