Lake Ellesmere, and of Ngaitahu, Cath Brown has been Craft Instructor with the Canterbury Education Department for about ten years now, and for us, she was an excellent teacher. For our meeting place, I looked for an outsized room with tea-making facilities handy; and with further thought for creature comforts I hoped that central heating would be available—just in case it should turn cold! Well, we had all this and more at St. Mark's Church School opposite the Basin Reserve, Wellington. More, did I say? Yes, indeed. The entrance was through a large cloak-room with a concrete floor, ideal for storing our flax damp to keep it supple; and the playing area provided oodles of car-parking space. We were cosy indeed. Now, the burning question of where to find flax enough to teach 25 people how to harvest it for the task in hand? The suggestion came to ring the caretaker of Queen Elizabeth Park, Paekakariki, and ask for permission to use the flax there. The answer was a friendly and helpful ‘Yes’. So, off to Paekakariki, to see how the land lay; and to be overwhelmed by the sight of grassy dales and undulating hills completely flax-covered—truly, a delightful spot. Our opening day, Monday 26 August, dawned fine, sunny and warm and gave us a good start. Class members turned up bright and cheery, filling the room with an air of keen expectancy. Friends and well- Lesley Dalley makes notes of weaving details Hard at work and really concentrating. From left: Mrs R. Agar, Mrs P. Hutchinson and Mrs N. Slater wishers came to support the venture, and our surprise visitor was Mrs Miria Karauria, newly elected Dominion President of the Maori Women's Welfare League. It was encouraging too to have the Secretaries of the N.Z. Maori Council and the Maori Women's Welfare League, John Booth and Marjorie Wardle, together with Bill Parker, who announces the Sunday Radio News in Maori, sparing their time to attend. By way of publicity, we had the Lady Editor of the ‘Dominion’, Dorothy Moses of ‘N.Z. Women's Weekly’, ‘Te Ao Hou’ came and saw and photographed; and a team from the National Film Unit moved in and covered the whole week's proceedings in colour. Canon Hohepa Taepa opened our school with prayers, followed by a short address which dovetailed beautifully with the tutor's lecture, ‘Flax in the eye of the Maori Weaver’, and with her first words, school was IN. Before long, off came her shoes and she got down to the business of demonstrating the basic points and explaining techniques while she deftly made a small working mat after the style of a hangi cover. We soon saw that a foot served as a third hand to hold the flax strips in position, leaving both hands free to weave. With the aid continued on page 47