Meet the team

Answering the need for a local paper that brought Mangawhai into the 21^st Century, the Mangawhai Focus first saw the light of day in November 2005.

It ran for two years as a monthly then twice monthly from November 2007. Family owned and operated by father /son combo Rob (general dogsbody) & Richard Pooley (Editor and fellow dogsbody) and in 2012 joined by daughter, sister and mum of four Melody Tito a former resident now living in Waipu but with a strong affinity to Mangawhai and surrounding districts. With the retirement of Rob in 2020, Jounalist Julia Wade, who has been part of the team fromsince 2016, came on board as Director with Richard and Melody in April of 2020. Design gal and typesetter Bex Augustin has been a part of the furniture for many years and the sales team expanded in 2022 when Nadia Lewis who resides in One Tree Point joined the team. As is often the case with a small team we tend to know how each other think and how we each operate.

While we are a fairly tight-knit group our regular contributors are no less important as they ferret out the stories of interest which everyone wants to read. This also means that although we have deadlines we are still often able to accommodate late entries of adverts and editorial in the interests of time sensitive articles and, of course, service to the community.

The team finds that empathy towards the area and its people, awareness of what’s happening therein and a collective broad sense of humour are the most important ingredients to maintain popularity and a strong, wide readership.

The Mangawhai Focus is a community  newspaper and we are pleased to have the support and involvement of the community in its future.