Honey & Rewena Bread

This is going to be short - BUT I'm interested in all the tokens of appreciation you've received (outside cold hard cash) for sharing your talent. Whether you spoke at an event, hosted a workshop, delivered a masterclass... basically anything where you've given time and talent; there is also a keen-ness to understand the difference between things received in Aotearoa New Zealand and abroad.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't designed to highlight and make note of the 'interesting' things gifted, but rather a genuine question that has been on my mind over the last month. Personally I love the gifts and tokens that are 'out the gate', because they're often things I wouldn't even notice in the store and consequently couldn't even accidentally end up in my household.

So here we go! First things first I can easily say that I have had the privilege to share a lot, and I'm confident of everything I have shared / spoken about at least 20% may have been useful. Over the years I've received a few things including a bunch of wine (these make great re-gifts - I don't drink), I've had natural deodorant (puzzling but maybe a hint), branded merch, a shoe voucher - this was super cool and I felt really spoilt because I could jump on the website and select any pair (and they were fancy). I've had some amazing books, incredible taonga, t-shirts galore (which I love as I pretty much don't buy t-shirts anymore), chocolates chocolates chocolates (super obvious given my increasing waistline) and so on - I think you get the idea. But the ultimate, and there are a bunch of valid reasons backing this up, and given it's the title of the article it's also super obvious, the hands down best gift I have received is local manuka honey from Tauranga and rewena bread from an 'aunty' in Tauranga, and here's why:

1. Her rewena was a taonga and everyone in the audience knew this particular 'aunty / nanny' which blew me away... and she had spent hours that morning (it was still warm) preparing this for me... talk about humbling!
2. It was local and was something that you actually couldn't buy #priceless
3. I absolutely love honey! Enough said... but the fact that I could sit with the bee keeper and get his story, not just about the honey but what took him on the honey journey, his experience in business and his aspirations for the future. In a nutshell the honey was amazing but the korero was far beyond what I could have hoped for.

So there it is, I'm pretty simple and these are the gifts / koha that will stick with me forever. I'm keen to here stories, one-word comments are just as good of the amazing things we've been gifted and those that stand out for good, or for 'interesting'.

3... 2... 1... and go!