Organisers of a Covid-19 checkpoint at Maketu are concerned at the amount of non-essential travel in and out of the town.   Maketu Health and Social Services posted statistics on its Facebook page, from the first day of its checkpoint,...

The Weekend Sun may not be in your letterbox this week but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. All the usual content can now be found at www.theweekendsun.co.nz including local news, letters to the editor, columns and entertainment. Times...

Proudly and defiantly, unhealthy fast food – everything fat, nothing green, nothing vegetarian, nothing vegan. That was the business model that won the heart, and the wallet, of American billionaire entrepreneur and investor, Mark Cuban. He owns...

Alan Pine is a stayer. He’s been with St John for 62 years and he is the latest person to be recognised in The Weekend Sun’s series on volunteers. He was made a Knight of Grace – St John’s highest honour in 1998 and one thing...

The Tauranga City Council is planning to remove a tidy, three-bedroom house in Pyes Pa to provide a second access to the park and playground behind it. The council purchased 12 Montana Drive for $630,000 in December 2017 and at least one local resident...

So here we are: the first column without a newspaper to accompany it. After over fifteen years of writing a weekly column it seems strange. But, in the hope that some of you out there, either isolated at home or still braving the deserted streets, still...

Tauranga woman Kelly Rice provides a perspective on being far from home during an international crisis.   OPINION: We left the mighty shores of New Zealand on December 8th, 2019.  A few short weeks later the virus stories started hitting...

For Karen and Michael Kessell laughter goes a long way. The Aongatete couple have taken it upon themselves to lighten up the neighbourhood with their own brand of humour. To start with, they installed a set of legs, sticking up out of the ground outside...

Tauranga Arts Festival is cancelling the Escape! Festival at Queen’s Birthday weekend but will deliver ‘arts at home’, a web-based project, for the lockdown. The festival website’s launch post on Wednesday, April 1 featured festival...

  The Weekend Sun will not be printed for the next four weeks.   Management advises that an extensive, free news service will continue to be provided online at: www.sunlive.co.nz with a boosted team of reporters to keep readers updated. Although...

  New Zealand is in lockdown but Bay of Plenty people can still connect through Sun Media’s news website: www.sunlive.co.nz and can now find essential services near them on a separate tab on the Tauranga City App.   Only essential...

  People are being urged to build support networks in their community to ensure the needs of vulnerable people are being met.   Age Concern general manager Tanya Smith says offers of help had been coming in regularly and they had spent...

  It’s time to start reading our way out of a crisis.   Books a Plenty shut its doors on Wednesday but already had a number of loyal customers in isolation before the lockdown was in place. Many had already stocked up on books...

It’s taken a global and viral ‘nasty’ to silence the man who won’t be silenced. Brian Cotter, the 90-year-old tonsils on the Saturday morning show on Village Radio, 1XT 1368AM, is under lockdown at his retirement village in...

  ANZAC Day across New Zealand will be different this year due the widespread of cancellations of ANZAC Day remembrance services.   The cancellations come as the outbreak of COVID-19 becomes more serious every day, but members of the community...

  When the skies over Bay of Plenty are blue and people are happy, the tourist industry is cock-a hoop.   All is well. “But when the weather changes, when the skies darken like they have with COVVID-19 then we are the first ones...

  There’s a big 2/6d glistening in the pile, a two shillings and sixpence, a half crown.   That was enough to buy a pack of 20 Matinee ‘extra douce’ fags back in the day, or two centre-stall movie tickets. That was pre-Decimal...

  It’s been jumped on, beat up and hen pecked but now the Dance-O-Mat on The Strand has to step aside.   The purpose-built dance platform, opposite Macau Bar, arrived in 2016, but the last dance has been called. The mat was donated...

  There has never been anything quite like the worldwide shutdown over the COVID-19 virus.   The economic impact is already hitting home in New Zealand from major tourism operators and exporters, to the little people like yours truly who...

  A former Filipino nurse is right at home in her new role with Maori health.   Maribeth Perez comes from the Philippines, trained as a nurse and worked there and in Singapore for 13 years. She is now almost halfway through a Bachelor of...

  On Wednesday, March 18, Demi Coombe turned nine years old and on the Tuesday beforehand she was gearing up to complete her 23rd walk up Mauao.   This year she is taking part in her version of the Mount Everest Challenge. She will still...

  After a busy week as a truck driver you would expect Maketu resident Eric Ashe to just put his feet up.   Nothing could be further from the truth for this fit 67-year-old. Eric is the deputy chief fire officer at the Maketu Volunteer...

  “One gutsy lady – on and off the tennis court.”   A close friend’s frank assessment of 90-year-old Laurel Mahaffey, an institution at the Tauranga Lawn Tennis Club and Western Bay of Plenty tennis in general. And...

  The Bay of Plenty events calendar is looking pretty thin as organisers heed advice to shut down public gatherings.   The COVID-19 outbreak is now a pandemic and the government has placed restrictions on large gatherings. The Tauranga...

  The COVID-19 bug which is battering the Bay of Plenty Tourism industry has added a new level relevance and importance to Tourism Bay of Plenty’s new 30 year strategy for what it calls ‘regenerative tourism’.   “We...

  SunLive is seeking more public input to help with its free 24-hour news service.   As the COVID-19 pandemic grips the world, it was a story of 40 Thai seasonal workers quarantined at a Bay of Plenty holiday park and posted on SunLive...

  As Age Concern reaches out to the elderly and the anxious caught in the virus scare, a Tauranga woman has also put up her hand to assist and comfort.   Kim Hedges of Papamoa invites the elderly and vulnerable to give her a shout. “I...

  Children are getting a chance to shine in an outdoor classroom.   Garden to Table Trust is helping to establish vegetable gardens in local schools like Welcome Bay’s Selwyn Ridge primary. The school’s Year 4 students now...

  On March 15, Candice Donner marks five years since she suffered a stroke. She was only 35 years old.   She was milking cows at the time. There was no warning, she just felt dizzy and fell over. “With the swelling in my brain I...