This competition was held in Palmerston North. With only one speaker from HWK and not connected to either of the schools we took our first trip to the national competition independently as He Waka Kōtuia. This in itself was hugely significant and another marker of the growth of our organisation. We only took a small support crew this year as we didn’t have the support of the schools, but families pulled in behind to help support Kiringāua on stage.
After his monumental year in 2018 where he placed 2nd in the country Kiringāua, in his first outing in the senior section, carried on from where he left off. He placed 2nd in kōrero takatū, the prepared speech and 4th in kōrero tene, the impromptu speech, to place 4th overall, only three points shy of first place in a very tight competition. Kiringāua didn’t have the kind of build-up to this competition that he would have normally. With Te Hautonga being so late in the year, his significant cultural workload at the passing of his Uncle Tahu and both of these events being so close to Polyfest, he’d had a wealth of experience preparing and performing whaikōrero and karakia for Tahu’s tangi, just not for his prepared speech for this competition.
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