Second Time Around - The PopUp Business School

From Dr. Ruth Herd

Kia ora koutou! Nau mai ki Paki Ngutu
Greetings to all! Welcome to my Blog.
Paki Ngutu means to clap your lips. It is having a natter or chat. 

My background is in Māori education. I trained as a primary teacher in Māori language immersion schooling known as Kura Kaupapa.  After graduating from Teachers college, I worked as the art lecturer at Te Wānanga Takiura for nearly 5 years. During this time, a group of students and lecturers from various Universities organised total immersion language camps during the school holidays. We would pack up our cars with resources, food and our kids and drive several hours to marae all over the country. We did this for 8 years and used innovative methods to teach. learn and practice our Te Reo Māori.  This is where the name of my business originated. Ako means to learn and also to teach. The teacher and student learn together it is a collaborative partnership. AAAkona Te Reo are the words of a song by Moana and the Tribe.  It occured to me that it is also a good name to pop up first in Google searches as my key terms are quite well utilised in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

In 2001 I left teaching and moved into Maori mental health and addictions field and started working as a health promoter in the Māori community utilising my skills of te reo, kapahaka and visual arts. My love for te reo Māori has not diminished over the 15 or so years I have worked in this field and I incorporate te reo in everything I do. I am currently living with a relative Jackie who is learning te reo at Te Wānanga Takiura where I used to work. I help her practice her new reo at home and she encouraged me to set up classes for other people and use my skills to make money doing what I love. The first class will start in our home over the mid semester holiday break as she and some of her classmates do not want to miss a thing. 

Last year in August I attended the PopUp Business School PUBSA at Henderson-Massey and found it very useful. I was attending as a self employed contractor and was looking at ways to promote a project I was working on. Sadly that project did not get off the ground and I found myself at loose ends again. When I heard the PUBSA was going to be in New Lynn I registered to do a refresher and then I got the flu so I could not attend the first week. While I was recovering at home I decided to develop my concept using the tools from the first time around and came up with a plan.

​Because I did not have much time to prepare for the PopUp Tradeshow I had no signage and used my existing business cards. I displayed some posters I had made for a conference and put that on the table to catch attention. I was much more relaxed about this show and did not go overboard buying resources like the last one. It was also good to recycle stuff I had already spent money on.After I set up my display and talked to a couple of people who stopped by my table, I decided to walk around and meet everyone and find out what they were doing. It was really enlightening and interesting and when I got back to my table I had a few names on my registration sheet to follow up with my Mobile Māori language course. I am still developing this idea and met people on the course who can help me develop my brand and logo. That was really exciting that there were people on the course who can support others to develop their business.  I am also enjoying the daily inspirational speakers who run businesses in my local area and will endeavour to support all the businesses who attended this course. 

Last year I spent two weeks with Tony and the team and it was full on learning. This year  I learned nearly as much in two days including the Tradeshow.  Second time around has been an enriching experience. 

For more information: https://akonatereo.weebly.com/