More than 150 students on the He Ara Tika Youth Mentoring programme participated in a sports day at the Mount Action Centre on Friday. The Steamers had a great time mixing with the children and teenagers at Mount Action Centre on Friday. Described as their role models by programme coordinator Mike Borell, Bay of Plenty Steamers players made an appearance at the sports day despite training committments in preparation for the clash against Waikato on Saturday evening. Mike says the sports More...

Tauranga flying school Bay Flight International is joining forces with the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology to increase the number of pilots trained each year. The aviation training partners are being squeezed by a government's education funding cap that Bay Flight chief executive officer Laurence Barnett says is going to lead to a shortage of New Zealand pilots. Bay Flight ceo Laurence Barnett. Between qualifying as a commercial multi engine qualified commercial pilot and More...

As Maori Language Week, people up and down the country have tried to learn and use some te Reo Maori. It is a lanquage unique to New Zealand and is one of the country's official languages. However,it is not spoken a great deal by the majority of New Zealanders leading to some poor pronunciation of Maori words that occur in the English language. Many of these are place names. SunLive visited Red Square to find out if people there were able to correctly pronounce some of these place names and More...

The Bay of Plenty Rugby Union and Tauranga City Council are launching a project aimed at promoting anti-bullying messages and tackling aggressive behaviours. The project is designed to educate youths and adults in the Western Bay sub-region through school and sports club environments. Bay of Plenty Rugby Union chairman Bruce Cameron, team mascot Steamie and V Marketing Programme manager Raewyn Mortensen are working together to reduce bullying in the region.   It will target children More...

The Merivale Community Centre is holding a te Reo Maori quiz night, open to the public on Thursday, to have some fun learning about and speaking in this language. Organised by the centre's services manager, Graham Cameron, it is open to people at any level in the language. Graham Cameron says the quiz night is an opportunity for people with any level of te Reo Maori to enjoy speaking it. Starting at 7pm the quiz will cover a broad range of topics, many of them touching on the theme of Te More...

A group of 12 students got their hands dirty while learning Te Reo Maori at Employ NZ at lunchtime on Tuesday. The 16-17 year old students were only allowed to use Maori as they set about baking some paraoa - flour dough bread that is fried. Kurt McDonald and Shaquille Undersen with their paraoa. The exercise is a part of Maori Language Week that began on Monday. Employ NZ's Robin Phillips says using a task like baking is a great way to teach a language. "It's best to use a More...

There are 10 people studying through the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic High Performance Academy successfully combining education with international level sport competition. Alex Dive has a promising surfing future. Studying the NZ Diploma in Business is 18 year old Alex Dive, who has had a top year surfing both in New Zealand and in Australia. Alex came second in the Auckland Surfing Champs in December, and followed with a win in the men's open division at the Volcom Pipeline Pro series in More...

Over 2000 teenagers have poured through the doors of Queen Elizabeth Youth Centre for the Tauranga Rotary Careers Expo on July 25-26. On Sunday families came to the event, with many mums and dads hoping their accompanying children would be inspired by a career path seen there. Alison Wilson says the turnout for the 2010 Tauranga Rotary Careers Expo is far greater than in 2009. On Monday, the centre, which has over 40 stalls from tertiary education providers or businesses, was filled with More...

More than 100 schools are set to participate in this year's AIMS Games to be held again in the Western Bay of Plenty during September. The 2010 NZCT AIMS Games runs Sunday, September 5 until Friday, September 10 and is a mixed sport event for intermediate and middle school students from all over New Zealand. Competitors from the 2009 AIMS Games. In seven years, the NZCT AIMS Games has gone from a small festival of sport, to what is now considered the Nationals Championships for More...

There is a buzz in Greerton this week as the suburb celebrates Bee Week with educational and shop window displays, colouring competitions and a visit by Winnie the Pooh. Bee Week is organised by the National Bee Keepers Association. It highlights the value and opportunities of bees and beekeeping in New Zealand - and how bees rely on human intervention to survive. Two year old Serenity Mossop sees bees. The flipside is also true, with human survival and ease of living tied to bees' More...