Tamahere School’s ultimate family fun night – the annual Pumpkin Night – is on Saturday, April 6.

The popular event, which runs from 3-8pm, features a big range of activities and entertainments and a wide selection of tasty food.

Amusements include a bouncy castle, bumper balls, horizontal bungy, slides and horse rides, a Nerf fun war, dunk the teacher, and a gumboot throw.

By now you either use or have at least heard of Windows 10. It’s a bit of a mess.

Here are some tips on how to improve the experience.

It doesn’t help that Microsoft is discontinuing Windows 7 in February 2020, meaning that it will no longer receive security update patches and be safe to use on the internet.

Tamahere’s long awaited Four Square store will open tomorrow (Tuesday, March 19) with a blessing around dawn.

The grocery store, the first to open in Tamahere’s new and much anticipated shopping precinct, is large, bright and more supermarket than local dairy.

The shop was designed to provide locals’ main grocery shopping experience in a convenient location, said operator Jassie Parmar.

Sanderson Group, which plans a new retirement village in Tamahere, is set to take possession of the 10ha site from April 1.

Signs announcing the arrival of its Tamahere Country Club are already up on the block bounded by Airport Rd and Tamahere Drive.

Construction will start with water treatment and sewerage plants, a traffic bund along Airport Rd or SH21 and the first show homes.

The next phase of consultation between Tamahere and the Waikato District Council has begun on locals’ priorities for their area.

Tamahere people have until April 8 to express their views online and at a community meeting later this month.

The council is now calling for Tamahere’s top three priorities on issues such as a footbridge across Airport Rd, a zero waste initiative at the new shopping centre, and the re-zoning of some land from rural to village.

Tamahere Forum editor Philippa Stevenson has returned home after six months volunteering in the Solomon Islands.

Stevenson, a journalist who founded Tamahere Forum in 2008, was based in Honiara from last September until this month with Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) on an assignment to educate Solomon Island journalists.

What to buy – a desktop or laptop? Computer guy Matt Bentley looks closely at both options on offer in this modern, plugged in world.

The answer is complex and nuanced, but sometimes obvious. The obvious part is, do I want to move my computer around? Do I want to use it in multiple rooms, or on vacation?

We don’t know how lucky we are. Well, I didn’t anyway. Oh, I thought I did. But there is nothing like a month in a developing nation to challenge that notion.

I’ve been in the Solomon Islands since September 11, my very own 9/11 reality check.

I’m volunteering with NZ’s VSA (Volunteer Service Abroad), working in a small media company in Honiara.

Armistice Day, November 11, will be a particularly historic day in Matangi this year.

For more than a hundred years, locals have called for a Roll of Honour for those from the Matangi district who served in the armed forces during World War 1. One hundred and four years later, that day has finally arrived.

At 11am on Sunday November 11, the Roll of Honour will be placed in the Matangi Hall, 480 Tauwhare Rd.

This is going to be essentially a gripes article. Hey, everyone gets one right?

In every single profession there’s stuff that most non-experts get wrong. I wouldn’t have the faintest clue about all the things I’m getting wrong about my car, or even about the cereal I eat in the mornings. So, don’t take it personally, but listen up, you might learn something useful.