Georgina Nelson (Secretary/Acting Treasurer)

Ngati Porou

Georgina was brought up in Tikitiki on New Zealand’s East Coast, completing her high school years at Lytton High School in Gisborne.

She has been employed in the administrative/legal and financial sectors for a number of years, discharging from the Royal New Zealand Navy in the administration/clerical branch following 6 years service and embarking on the inevitable OE (overseas experience) in 1985.  Georgina commenced employment within the Attorney General’s Department in Sydney, moving to Bathurst NSW in 1987 where Anthony was transferred within the Department of Corrective Services.   Both their eldest boys were born in Australia prior to a return to the East Coast in 1993, where their two youngest sons were born.

A career in adult education with Te Whare Wananga O Ngati Porou followed with the family returning to Australia in 2002 and settling in Melbourne where they now own and manage a successful satellite communications and installation business.

Rugby union plays a major role in the Nelson whanau, with  both Georgina and husband Anthony actively involved year round with junior and senior rugby in winter and touch rugby in summer.  Both are on the committee of management at  the Endeavour Hills Rugby Union Club, Anthony as President and Georgina as Junior Administrator/Co-ordinator/Canteen Manager.

All the family are now dual citizens, both New Zealand and Australian and are extremely proud of their Maori heritage!   Georgina and Anthony are looking forward to the birth of their first grandchild in 2012.

“My husband and I have often wondered whether we will return to NZ to live and our conclusion is probably not as we want to be where our children and our grandchildren are.  Does that make us any less Maori?  No, I don’t believe so; our whakapapa, our marae, our whanau, our whenua assures us of that!

“Maori have been trying to build a marae here in Melbourne for over 30 years.   It would be foolish to expect that the MaraeMelbourne committee can do this massive project on their own.  MaraeMelbourne has had many offers of help for when the marae is built, but help is needed now to actually raise the funds to build the marae!!

“I implore our community to be more proactive and supportive of this venture by joining as a member, purchasing a brick, visiting our website or telling others about us.   MaraeMelbourne committee is an accountable and transparent organisation.  If you have questions to ask of them, ask them!!  If you are unsure of what is happening, find out!!”

“As in times of old when our ancestors sailed the seas to new lands, so we continue to do so now and into the future - lifestyle and work opportunities make this inevitable.  Similarly, as in days of old, the community would  come together on the marae to help with whatever event was happening there – weddings, birthdays, christenings, funerals, events celebrating our culture and our traditions.  We do still, but we have to hire and rent other community centres and halls to do so and they have their own requirements!   This is why we need a cultural centre (marae) here in Melbourne, so that we can continue to come together as a community and to celebrate who we are in a place we can call our own.”