Leeuwenburg said the March 14 event was a chance for community members present and past to come together and share their memories of the hall and the events held there.<\/p>\n
She said anybody who wanted to attend or had memories or photos should check out the Parakao Hall social media pages or email Amy at milkywhey.nz@gmail.com.<\/p>\n
In its heyday, Parakao was home to the two-teacher Parakao School (which turned 100 in 2012), a general store, post office, telephone exchange, garage, play centre and its hall, but few of these remain.<\/p>\n
Locals built the hall with kauri donated and milled locally. It was known as the Mangakahia Settlers Hall when it opened with a grand ball in 1926.<\/p>\n
At first, it was just a large hall with the supper room, kitchen and stage, with the side rooms added later. An erratic generator supplied power.<\/p>\n
Today, there\u2019s a well-appointed commercial kitchen.<\/p>\n
Dances, weekly picture shows, 21st birthdays, social functions, school plays, pantomimes, and prize-givings have been held there.<\/p>\n
It was the classroom when the rooms were being renovated at the school. <\/p>\n
The Mangakahia Gardening Club held its monthly meetings there. It has also catered for floral festivals, political rallies, badminton, table tennis, cards, Trivial Pursuit nights, church services, christenings and funerals, Pakotai Country Women\u2019s Institute meetings, music and dancing lessons.<\/p>\n
Clinics by the school doctor and district health nurse were all blended into the district\u2019s social fibre from the hall.<\/p>\n
Leeuwenburg said these events showed just how valuable and loved the hall was.<\/p>\n
She said the Whang\u0101rei District Council and Pub Charities provided the hall society with its main funding. It also recently had a sizeable donation from local group PPCG.<\/p>\n
The hall also holds rolls of honour of locals who served in the world wars and other conflicts.<\/p>\n
The local domain, about seven acres (2.8ha) nearby on Hunter Rd, is associated with the hall and now leased to a local farmer. Part of it is reserved for overflow parking for the hall and cafe.<\/p>\n
These days it\u2019s quieter times for the hall, with the school, play centre and other amenities long gone. The general store is now The Old Parakao Store Cafe\/Bar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leeuwenburg said the March 14 event was a chance for community members present and past to come together…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[115924,4624,177,9063,102920,1259,10813,57236,168125,7568,9207,1535,111,43,139,1067,69,168124,34592,12177,6180,44263,61,1533],"class_list":{"0":"post-307866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-100th","9":"tag-anniversary","10":"tag-celebrate","11":"tag-celebration","12":"tag-centenary","13":"tag-community","14":"tag-grand","15":"tag-hall","16":"tag-halls","17":"tag-honour","18":"tag-lady","19":"tag-march","20":"tag-new-zealand","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-newzealand","23":"tag-northland","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-parakao","26":"tag-ready","27":"tag-settlement","28":"tag-shes","29":"tag-tiny","30":"tag-to","31":"tag-will"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}