Te Waka
Welcome to our temporary online home as we build our new website. In the interests of transparency, our Trust patron is Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr, and our Trustees are Faumuina Felolini Maria Tafuna’i. Selau Ifopo, Lopeti Sumner, Janyne Morrison and Puamiria Parata-Goodall.
Our charitable trust's purpose is to support culture, traditional and contemporary arts and encourage new forms of arts, culture and engagement. We are committed to uplifting and supporting Māori, Pasifika and other indigenous communities so they feel proud and they belong.
We’re passionate about assisting Māori, Pasifika and other indigenous communities tell their stories as language holders, kaitiaki, entrepreneurs and healers. Finally, we support equity in Aotearoa and abroad through wayfinding programmes.
OUR STORY
Nau mai, haere mai, afio mai and welcome to Flying Geese, a V-formation of leaders and facilitators who help organisations navigate their greatest challenges. But more than that we are a family, which is what happens when people who are united by vision and values come together.
We are passionate about creating a world where people and organisations understand themselves as part of a wider environment. To help them see opportunity in times of adversity, as our patron navigator Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr says. If there is one thing our clients leave with - it’s clarity. They know their story. They know where they want to go and what to do next.
Flying Geese was founded by Faumuina Felolini Maria Tafuna'i. Since 2015, Faumuina has developed Wayfinding models to solve social and economic problems under the guidance of Hoturoa. After more than 20 years in journalism, creative arts
and development and working with the likes of the Oxfam, UN Women and UNDP, she could see the mainstream strategy frameworks were rigid, flawed, and resulted in poor outcomes. Having spent more than a decade as an ocean voyager on traditional waka hourua, she knew the invaluable nature of navigators’ wayfinding approach and their unique leadership. Uniting her voyaging and professional worlds, it became clear to Faumuina that so much of what wayfinding offered, was what was lacking from these frameworks.
Faumuina has recruited some of Aotearoa’s sharpest facilitators, leaders and voyagers to help guide her vision of taking knowledge from Pacific ancestors and returning it to those who belong to this amazing region. For this team, wayfinding is not a metaphor, it is a way of seeing and understanding the world. It is also a way to lead your life.
MEET OUR TALENTED CREW
A WAKA OF LEADERS AND FACILITATORS
Faumuina Felolini Maria Tafuna'i
Founder & CEO
Hailing from the villages of Mulifanua and Asaga in Samoa, Faumuina is the daughter of Ifopo Lopeti and Nivaga. She carries the Tafuna’i from her late husband Patrick, and continues to guide their son Oliver. She is an award-winning journalist and ocean voyager. Guided by navigator Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr, Faumuina created a wayfinding system that takes the wisdom of celestial navigation and voyaging and transposes it into a strategic framework. She has developed and run programmes for Oxfam, UN Women and UNDP. She is also an Edmund Hillary Fellow.
Hoturoa Barclay-Kerr (ONZM)
Advisor & Navigator
Hoturoa and his wife, Kim, have five children and three mokopuna, and are based in the Waikato. He is a master voyager and navigator. Hoturoa and Kim are co-founders of Te Toki Voyaging Trust, overseeing their programmes in waka hourua, waka ama and wayfinding. He co-authored the book ‘Wayfinding Leadership: Ground-breaking Wisdom for Developing Leaders’. In 2019, he was co-Chair of the National Coordinating Committee for Tuia 250. In 2020, he was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori and heritage commemoration.
Selau Ifopo
Chief of Operations & Facilitator
Selau is the fourth child of Ifopo Lopeti and Nivaga Ifopo from Samoa. She and partner Ioka are parents to a blended family of 15 children. Selau spent a decade with Work and Income NZ, then Ministry of Social Development, where she founded sPacifically Pacific – a careers and leadership expo that is now an annual event in Canterbury. She then set up a Trust focussed on mentoring Māori and Pasifika High School students. She has held recruitment and community engagement roles in Corrections, Stats NZ, and Ara Polytechnic.
Sam Totten
Head of Publishing & Facilitator
Sam was raised in the alpine deserts of Utah. He is the grandson of a maritime engineer, airforce pilot, drug and alcohol counsellor, and folk singer, with bloodlines to Scotland and Germany. Inspired by food sovereignty movements, he moved to Hawaii where he worked on farms and learned to sail. After his first ocean crossing from Fiji to Aotearoa, he met Faumuina sailing Haunui waka with Te Toki Voyaging Trust. With a background in charitable trusts, Sam serves Flying Geese in its publishing endeavours, grant writing and facilitation.
Jodi Goodwin
Facilitator
Jodi lives on Te Tai Poutini where she explores her relationship with rongoa and kaitiakitanga. She is the daughter of two entrepreneurs from Murchison (Tasman Region) with whakapapa to Aotearoa, England, and Ireland. After many experiences overseas, including a yoga teacher training in India, she returned to build waka hourua, which she later helped sail to Tahiti and Hawaii. Her passion for waka connected her to Te Toki Voyaging Trust and Faumuina when they sailed together in 2019. Jodi serves in the facilitation crew.
