Issue23 8 Helensville News November 2020 5000 copies delivered monthly to Helensville, Parakai, Kaukapakapa, Waitoki, Wainui, Woodhill, South Head and Shelly Beach Giant toy show & market for Christmas A huge toy show, combined with a market, Zealand - plus another “two has been planned to take the place of the or three hundred” loose cancelled Helensville Christmas parade. Barbies. Stacked up to The Lions Club of Helensville is five-deep on shelves at her organising the event as a free, fun family ‘day home, there are some she with a difference’ aimed at attracting both hasn’t seen herself in young and old. It is expected to be the largest years. display of toys seen in Helensville, and will In 2006 she exhibited come mostly from the collection of Lions 600 in the Helensville hall members Patsy Carlyle and Scott Osmond. from a collection that then The show will be held in the Helensville numbered ‘just’ 800. Patsy War Memorial Hall on Saturday, December 5 expects a significantly from 9am to 2pm. There will be no entry fee, larger number will be on though gold coin donations to help cover show in December, costs will be welcomed. including examples of The highlight of the toy show will petite and fuller figure undoubtedly be a display of hundreds of Barbies and some dolls Barbie and Ken dolls, part of a gigantic never before seen in this ! Patsy with a small selection of her Barbies collection belonging to Patsy. country. Patsy started collecting the dolls “as a There are Elvis and joke” in 1984 and now has 1400 boxed Frank Sinatra Ken dolls, examples - the largest collection in New Barbies from famous movies such as Hitchcock’s The Birds and television shows like Star Colouring contest Trek, a National The Lions Club is running a Geographic series of dolls, children’s colouring competition in the and even a whole range lead up to the Christmas Festival (see from the postponed 2020 main article). Tokyo Olympics, which are It’s being co-ordinated by local Lion likely to become collector Yvonne ‘Hilty’ Hilton, who will be items. providing entries to all local schools and “We’ll show as many as early childhood centres. Entries will be we can fit,” she says. completed and judged prior to the There will also be festival, and go on display in the hall displays of Beanie Babies, ! Scott with some of the toys he will have on display during the event. stacking Russian dolls The colouring competition has (including, ironically, one American model trucks, unavailable in New regularly been a popular part of depicting former US President Barack Zealand and purchased by Scott during trips Helensville Christmas events and Lions Obama), and a large teaspoon collection. to the US, and a large, fully detailed model of are pleased to be holding it again this For those not into dolls there will be the infamous Titanic. year. Prizes will be vouchers from Scott’s collections of matchbox toys, some Scott quips he and Patsy are “letting the Commercial Rd businesses Paper Plus dating back to the 1960s, along with John toys out to play for the day”. Select and Dollar City. Deere toys, ambulances, fire engines, and A centrepiece in the hall will be a large police car models. There will be a collection of ! To page 2 www.facebook.com/ helensville news @HNewselensville www.helensvillenews .co.nz editorial I can see why all the out-of-towners who come to Helensville each year forArts in the Ville are so impressed. It’s an event that in the six years since it started has really come of age, vastly bigger than its original iteration and showcasing what an incredibly diverse range of artists and artisans we have in our community. Photos are on pages 8-9. It’s a boon for the local arts community as well, providing them with access to a potential audience (and buyers!) they might not otherwise come across. The three-day event continues to evolve, and a new addition this year, the A.B.C Show & Tell with local art and collectables expert John Perry discussing and valuing items brought in by the audience members, a-la television’sAntiques Roadshow, was fascinating. Talking of collectables, the huge toy show being put on by the Helensville Lions Club (see front page) looks like being a beauty. While it can’t make up for the loss to Covid-19 of our beloved annual Christmas parade, it’s something a bit different and sure to be a wonderful Christmas treat for locals, young and old alike. Combined with the new giant Christmas tree and lighting for shop fronts, courtesy of Rodney Local Board (page 4), Christmas in Helensville won’t be so glum after all! Local book lovers who missed their fix with the Covid-cancelled May Lions Book Fair will be thrilled the annual Christmas Fair is going ahead later this month (page 3). It’s a great chance to stock up on reading before the Christmas holidays. Elsewhere in this issue we catch up with recently re-elected local MP Chris Penk (page 6), and we meet the owners of a couple of new businesses, SweetAz (page 10) and Pike Hair Boutique (page 11). - Dave Addison, Editor Giant toy show (cont...) ! From page 1 specially for children, who will also be up for operating model railway, owned by Kenneth prizes if they come to the show in fancy Carlyon of Mt Albert and frequently dress. displayed throughout the North Island. To keep hunger pangs at bay, the RSA Scott says the Lions Club is working hard will be holding a sausage sizzle fundraiser. to ensure the show will be the “main event” in Helensville for Christmas this year, in light of the parade’s cancellation. To that end that perennial Christmas Gibbs sculpture farm visit favourite - Santa Claus - will be in his grotto Tickets are still available for the all day, inviting children who have been good Helensville A&P Show’s visit to the Gibbs to tell him what they would like for Christmas. sculpture farm on December 4. And if superheros, rather than Santas, The spectacular Gibbs Farm contains are your thing, you are in luck - Batman will numerous large-scale outdoor artworks by be at the show too, along with his Bat-Bike. some of the world’s most significant ‘Batman’ is actually the owner of the contemporary artists, along with exotic Superhero Superette in Otara, which animals such as giraffe. features its own Bat Cave. He runs a Tickets are $45 per person, with all charitable organisation called Random Acts money raised going directly to help fund the of Batman, providing happy memories for 2020 Helensville Show. The visit is from sick children. 10am to 2pm on Friday, December 4. In conjunction with the toy show will be a Bookings are essential. Email: market where local craftspeople will be [email protected], or phone 09 selling their goods - many of which are sure 420 7572. Tickets are also available online to make excellent Christmas gifts. at Eventfinda: http://tiny.cc/66qzsz. There will also be a raffle, with all prizes 09 411 9604 www.wyatts.net.nz [email protected] OPEN 7 DAYS! Mon-Fri: 7am-5pm Sat: 8am-4pm Sun: 9am-3pm 2 Issue238 , November 20 20 No bananas - but heaps of books LIFESTYLE MOWING MACHINERY ”Yes, we have no bananas” went the old the Helensville War Memorial Hall on song, and that’s true also for the Lions Club Saturday, November 28 from 9am to 4pm , “We will put the fun back into mowing” of Helensville. andfrom 10am to 3pm on the Sunday . Quality brand mowers But what the club does have is hundreds As he does every year, Chris has & ride ons of banana boxes, stacked to the brim with categoris ed all the books ready for the event, Unparalleled service & thousands of books ready to go on sale at its but says with the huge number on hand it support Large product range Christmas Book Fair, scheduled to be held simply won’t be possible to put all the books on the last weekend of November. on the tables. Come in and see us today! Theclub had to cancel its a utumn b ook “There will be many boxes on the floor, 8 Stevens Lane fair in May because of Covid -19 restrictions , but the books will all have been sorted- just Waitoki which means “we will have twice the number not laid out in an orderly manner as at 0274 955 948 of books for sale” at the Christmas Fair, says previousb ook f airs ,” explains Chris . www.moadoc.co.nz organiser Chris Clark. Nfon- iction will be split into 20 categories, including one dedicated to New Zealand subjects, andthere will be a largegn eneral on- fiction book section as well. Fiction will be arranged alphabetically by author, with six special interest groups, the largest of which will be fsantasy/ cience fiction. “We also have a tremendous number of ! Packed, stacked and ready to go - literally thousands of books have been children's books stored, sorted and are now ready to sell since the May fair cancellation for all ages,” says Chris. The twice-yearly book fairs usually raise Paperbacks around $8000 to $10,000 each for the club, will be on sale for$1, hardbacks at $2 , and all so the loss of the May fair was a major hit to children's booksjust 50c each. Rodney District Insurance the club’s annual fundraising.