It's quite a challenge - there are over 60 places of worship in the Whanganui area and the club hopes to include most of these, aiming to document the exteriors and the inside details of all of them.

A recent highlight for the team was a weekend trip to Ohakune, Raetihi and Hiruharama Jerusalem to capture images of the local churches, many with outstanding heritage value. Read more

For the past 13 years, Nobbs has worked as a director of learning support and student development at Massey University and Auckland University of Technology.

But he said businesspeople rather than educationalists were now running universities.

"With big institutions, it's easy to talk about your values and much harder to live them."

He said he'd observed that a lot of the values universities upheld were box-ticking exercises.

"The tertiary situation is quite disappointing now. Academic education and universities used to be about creating critically-thinking citizens, but it's very much a business now.

"It's about getting people through education as quickly as possible."

He's been manager of Whanganui City Mission for three months now. Continue reading

Whanganui has again been named a Smart21 City by US-based think tank, the Intelligent Community Forum, and is the only New Zealand town or city to make this year's list.

The 21 communities around the world can now compete to become a top-seven finalist to be named Intelligent Community of the Year. Read more

Several hundred people attended the event over Easter weekend this year.

The occasion marked 70 years since Hui Aranga first started.

Fr Phil Cody, SM, said the Baptisms were linked with Catholic Maori clubs from Whanganui and Hawkes Bay.

The ages of those baptised ranged from babies to adults, including three teenagers.

In an especially moving instance, a mother and child were both baptised, Fr Cody said.

"The Hawkes Bay group were prepared by the late Pa Hemi Hekiera SM, so it was very moving for Pa David Gledhill, who lived and worked with Pa Hemi in the missionary ‘Whaia Te Whaea', to complete the work he had begun."

Fr Cody said it is quite common to have Baptisms at the Easter Mass at the Hui Aranga, but noted that this year's number is higher than usual.

He noted a strong emphasis on youth at the Hui Aranga.

"The Hui is largely about youth - there is a special youth council and youth take part in as much as possible in the services - for example a group of 75 on stage singing ‘This little light of mine' as part of the Easter Vigil service of the Light of Christ.

"The Hui Aranga is where many Maori Catholic, young and old, find an expression of being fully Maori and Catholic."

The keenly contested Kapa Haka competitions were won by three clubs from the Whanganui River region - St Peter Chanel (senior), St Vincent (junior) and Parakino (midgets).

On Easter Sunday, before Mass, the nine clubs present dressed up in special uniforms and marched to Mass.

Pa Tipene Hancy was the local Maori priest who led the services on Holy Thursday and Easter Sunday.

"A big question facing Maori Catholic is priesthood and Maori seminarians to carry on the leading of the Hui," Fr Cody said.

Next year's Hui Aranga will be held at Aquinas College in Tauranga.

Sources

• Supplied
• Radio New Zealand
• Image: Supplied

Mayor Annette Main's call to shun him was not a message Christians could adopt, said Monsignor Bell, adding that those who are threatening his life are really lowering themselves "to the same level as the person we are dealing with, Mr Wilson himself".