COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT: AMY HANNA

Weinterviewed Amy Hanna back in 2016 regarding her community contribution and her interest in photography. Today she continues to actively engage in community events and projects.

Her focus, probably because of parenting her girls, is mainly to do with youth and creativity.

We all decided it would be interesting for Blair her husband to interview their teenage daughters for us to learn about their mum from their perspective, to find out about Amy's life 5 years on and the new life chapter she finds herself in.

They last interviewed your mum in 2016. How has life changed for her since then?

Since 2016, Mum has zigzagged around the local schools and now works at Te Mata School teaching a structured literacy course and running and organising the Te Mata school library. Every time we go out she's always looking for a new haul of kids books despite us being about ten years off their target audience.

How do you think Amy has found the experience of parenting teenage girls?

We’re angels so she's pretty lucky. We're sure it's not always easy at times but we know everything she does is in our best interest and because she loves us, which we are constantly reminded about. Taylor would dispute this slightly with the ‘screen time’ Mum puts on her phone but nevertheless we love her the most.

If you could describe Amy in five words what would they be?

It takes a lot more than five words to describe someone like our Mum but if we had to pick five it would probably be, Gorgeous, Colourful, Passionate, Thoughtful, Mum.

Figuratively speaking your Mum is known to not be on the sideline but instead a real team player. What aspect of the community is she currently involved in and what do you think she is really passionate about?

Well often she is on the sidelinesrain or shine - taking photos of muddy soccer players and circus performances. She loves being a part of the Feed the Kids crew at Raglan Area School and recently she’s been involved with the Youth Collective at the Kopua Domain.

Over the past few years she has also been a big part of the Raglan Theatre Academy not just taking photos but chipping in a little bit of everything including sealing love letters with kisses for one of the Harry Potter professors and painting the faces of Smaug the Dragon! Mum seems to always put most of her passion into what we are passionate about which has been so awesome; having her there as one of our utmost supporters as well as participating in as many ways as possible.

Why do you think your Mum puts her hand up to help out in community events?

Mum has always been one to jampack her schedule (until we’re questioning why she keeps putting her hand up) but we think she does it because she genuinely cares about helping to create and capture the most fun and valuable events in the community. Her connection with the Whaingaroa youth through teaching also sparks her passion to inspire a new generation as well as us to be creative through filmmaking, art, drama, and music.

Your mum has worked up at Soundsplash for the past few years, which I know you enjoyed. What was it like having her there helping out?

Having Mum at Soundsplash is so helpful because we know she is always there if we or our friends ever need anything, even if it's just a quick phone charge or a bit of support in ‘Deep Space’. We can always spot her with her colourful hair and bright outfits which is even better!

When the Local Rag contacted her last week she was at the hairdresser. In a previous interview she said she 'chooses not a life of imitation'. Tell us if this ongoing self expression has rubbed off on the way you live your lives?

Honestly each time she heads to the hairdressers it's like a lucky dip as to what combination of colours and style she's going to come home with. Mum isn't afraid to be herself and that is really admirable to us and has rubbed off on us in the best way possible. Trust us, we both have had our own spin at trying out hair colours including a full head of blue hair dye on Cass’s 10th birthday. I think mum's colourful style and ever changing hair colour has had an impact on us because it gives us the confidence to have our own unique style and sense of self. Mum isn’t afraid to be herself which we both really admire and hope to emulate.

What other aspects of Amy's character are you grateful for and might hope to emulate moving forward?

We’re always so grateful for Mum’s talent for organisation and that she always has a plan when we need one. She is the trip organiser and we don’t know where we would be without herprobably just at home - although neither of us fully emulate this, we both hope to… eventually. Although one thing we hope not to copy is her inability to multitask when on facebook. Number one rule, never ask Mum anything when she's on facebook.