About us

The Patea & Waverley Press is a small rural community newspaper in South Taranaki, New Zealand. The paper is produced on the first working day of each month and is delivered free to homes, businesses, post office boxes and rural mail from Mokoia in the north to Brunswick in the south – that’s 2,700 papers.

The paper does not have reporters. We rely on stories and photos from people in the district, some of whom contribute something most months. Many of the local schools and sports clubs are very regular contributors. The cost of producing the paper is covered by advertising and, again, many of the advertisers are very regular indeed. Why? Because they know they have a targeted, loyal local market.

So why put the paper on a blog as well? I tried this once before and it did not work, but feel the need to try it again. We get a lot of email inquiries, and one or two who are from Wanganui, New Plymouth or further afield have said it was hard to track us down – so I thought this might help.

Finally, who are we? Cath and Tony Sheard; we’ve been the editors for about 10 years now. I’m the local library manager for both Patea and Waverley, and Tony is a permanent paid Ambulance Officer covering Patea, Waverley, Waitotara. We can be contacted at cathsheard@xtra.co.nz if you would like to talk with us about contributing an article to the paper, or running some advertising.