Kate Taylor - CommuniKate 2.67

I am a freelance writer, operating as communiKate, based in Hawke’s Bay but covering the lower North Island (and often further afield).

I have been a journalist since I left school, although I started with radio and only moved into print when I returned from my OE in 1996. I left full-time employment when my first child was born and I have been a freelance (or self employed) journalist, administrator and event manager ever since.

My current contracts/clients Hawke's Bay Federated Farmers, HB Regional Council, Ravensdown, Takapau Health Centre, Dominion Post, Ruralco's Real Farmer magazine and others. I do regular work for the Poplar and Willow Research Trust and East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards and am now employed part-time by NZ Farmer newspaper under editor Jon Morgan.

In the past I have written or worked for organisations such as Young Farmers, Federated Farmers, Nuffield NZ, TB Free, RoadSafe Hawke’s Bay... and others.

I am also a member of the Takapau Volunteer Fire Brigade, belong to a few local sporting organisations and am an administrator of our community Facebook page.

Growing up in the southern farming district of West Otago was an idyllic childhood ... the youngest of four Rivett girls on a family sheep farm.

Newstalk ZB in Hawke's Bay beckoned when I was 21 after I had worked in broadcasting in Gore, Christchurch and Alexandra. Many people assume I moved here when I met my husband, when in fact I moved here and met Thomas a few weeks later (thank you Young Farmers a.k.a. the rural dating agency). The rest, as they say, is history.

Thomas and I have been together for 24 years, married for 20. We have two great children (if I do say so myself) called Sarah, 17, and Lachlan, 15.