Welcome by Cathy Purdie ZL2ADK

Cathy welcomed all present, beginning with a thrice welcome in English: Welcome!Welcome! Welcome! and then ending with a thrice welcome in Maori: Haere Mai! Haere Mai! Haere Mai!

 

photo - Carol ZL2VQ Cathy ZL2ADK and MP. Muriel Newman

Cathy spoke about the challenge for New Zealand YLs to extend the planned South Pacific 2000 to a full international event, and all the planning that entailed. ... Imagine our surprise when from Svalbard came an approach to the New Zealand Women's Amateur Radio organisation to extend our gathering to include the rest of the world. NZ WAR0 excitedly accepted the challenge and here we are today - a gatheting of 160 people representing 16 different countries.

What a joy to meet at last, so many that we count as our great friends, and have spoken to many times on the airways. What a thrill to now put faces to names, and what a delight to be able to share ideas and cultures. If there is one thing I hope our many guests will take away from their stay in NewZealand, it is the obvious love of New Zealanders for their country, the thrill we get from showing visitors around and how welcome you all are.

Official Opening and Presentation of the NZ WAR0 Achievement Award to Carol ZL2VQ by M.P. Muriel Newman

I am honoured to have been invited to officially open this International YL2000 event. With these words, M.P. Muriel Newman opened International YL2000 by explaining that she had become involved with communications as one of her portfolios as far back as the 1980s and how she had discovered that there was more to radio communications than she had imagined. The Act M.P. raised quite a laugh when she told us that she had not only been given `a wonderful giftpack but another pack as well. ' Carol ZL2VQ and Wayne ZL2VN had also presented her with `my very own Amateur radio training and testing package and an application for membership to the New Zealand Association of Radio Transmitters.

It was great to see so many women involved in amateur radio, Dr Newman said, and was interested to see as she looked around the room that while we called ourselves YLs "Young Ladies we can be any age, young or old, which was much better than the lot of the OMs, "Old Men". '