Above Lucy at Te Papa Tongarewa energetically introduces the tour of the national museum.
Tuesday proved to be the busiest day for the Miss Universe New Zealand 2011 contestants, with visits to Parliament (with my neighbour Murray as the tour guide), Te Papa (with a very energetic guide, Lucy—and with thanks to Bridget MacDonald for her assistance), the Kilmarnock Heights Home, and Wagamama’s Queen’s Wharf, Wellington restaurant for dinner. They returned to the Museum Hotel for a make-up session with Farmers and Estée Lauder.
As with the ANZAC service, I think it’s important for our ambassador to Miss Universe to have a good grounding in the ingredients of our nation. While ANZAC Day allowed them to commemorate the sacrifices made by Australian and New Zealand military personnel, and reflect upon their meaning, a visit to Parliament allows them to appreciate the democratic system that we have.
Te Papa Tongarewa, the National Museum of New Zealand, is new on the Miss Universe New Zealand calendar, and provides an appreciation of the cultural aspect of Aotearoa.
A rest home visit is consistently on the calendar, and this allowed me to see how they interact with the senior members in our society. It’s a good test to see whose compassion shines through.
And Wagamama was a wonderful venue for everyone to let their hair down for dinner before Suzanne Purser from Farmers brought in a representative from Estée Lauder to brief the 13 contestants on one of their responsibilities on Thursday.
The young ladies all excelled today in their first public speaking event (at Kilmarnock) though a few high-rise terminals crept in to the speech. I have mentioned it to them so they can be on alert for it later in the week.
And, as promised on Easter Day, I was able to dine with six of the young ladies I did not get a chance to chat to earlier. Samantha Papp, Miss Clinic 42, is the odd one out so far, and I intend to address this tomorrow, to keep things fair and to allow all contestants to get similar advice. It also allows me to see how they interact over dinner.
One commenter at this site mentioned that we could be at risk of picking the best ‘pretender’, though with this level of scrutiny all week, I don’t think one would get through the net.—Jack Yan, Publisher
Above, from top Lauren Mann, Miss The Steps Dental Care, talks to one of the residents at Kilmarnock Heights Home. Some of the contestants with Kilmarnock’s oldest (104 years) resident, Amy. Isabelle Pearson, Miss Great South Vets, with one of Kilmarnock Home’s visitors.
Above Contestants dine at Wagamama in Wellington.
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Thanks for the mention Jack. I don’t believe (or want to believe) that the girls are devious, but we’ll never know why a girl enters (fame, money, trip to Brazil, genuinely want to be an ambassador…).
Blogs aren’t responsible journalism mechanisms – they are un-moderated op-ed forums. I believe that the person who enters into a blog or comments is responsible for their words, BUT it is also the responsibility of the reader to verify fact. To be slightly cheeky, you are posting on a blog and I can’t necessarily say you met (my) statutes of burden. So I’ll be watching your comments and actions very closely to see if you are being as thorough as you say you are.
However, my point needs to be elaborated…
You, Jack, are a public figure – the only reason why I looked at Lucire and then the MUNZ site was because of your mayoral campaign. In researching you, there were some interesting things you said, especially about MUNZ. So I waited to see in your campaign, if you measured up to or above what you have said in public forums online.
Let’s not be naive, the online community is part of the generation of MUNZ contestants. It’s not going to change, how have they managed their public profile? Is what they say now versus online the same?
Have you done a google search on any of them and see what they have put out there? Maybe that’s against the rules, but it’s something that needs to be thought about more and more. You can’t delete everything, once it’s out there, it’s out there, even when you try to delete it. Companies do background checks on social media sites for employees, is that something that pageant judges should be looking for? If a 12 year old pimply boy from Bolivia can find information that you couldn’t, how does that reflect on ALL of us?
We can live in a siccophant society where we just retweet with excitement or we can question what is put in front of us and ACTUALLY engage in a discourse. In this world of Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and blogs, simply ignoring those vehicles as part of being an ambassador.
Anyway, I must be getting back to the real world now. Cheers and I hope to see a response.
WN, as you hinted, there’s a difference between a blog that treats rumours from disgruntled regional finalists as gospel (I can only think of one off-hand that I frequented) and a website for publications that happen to use a blog platform back-end. And how have my little op-eds failed your standards for journalism?
One of the other judges checks the search engines and all social media for online rep (and has already done so), casting a careful eye over them. We each have our roles, which is why I love the present panel.
Your concerns are valid but the responsibility for dealing with them has already been discharged.
But if you’re waiting for me to reveal how thorough I or my fellow judges have been, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed. You can ask general questions and I might engage with you. However, the overall rule is that the final night’s result is not something that the judges elaborate on, as much as I would like to.
Have I taken note of who has asked the most insightful questions? Who has engaged with her fellow competitors with the most intelligent conversation? Who, in discussion, seems to believe in only “fashionable” causes without a convincing story that places her with them? Have cliques formed? Is there someone who seems more independently minded and headstrong? Are there contestants who fail to join in on group conversations? Who has the most enthusiasm? Who can take criticism? I have answers for all of these, but I’m not permitted by the rules to mention them and, I’m sure you’ll agree, it would be grossly unfair if I pointed to a specific situation as it could isolate someone unfairly.
While I personally would love for there to be cameras recording the judging room for even greater transparency, or publicly show every judge’s scoring form, I can’t foresee it happening under the current structure.
I will say this: two judges’ reports total 5,366 words so far this week.