ARROWTOWN PTA MEETING ENTERS SEVENTH HOUR AS WELLINGTON MOTHER REFUSES TO LEAVE

An Arrowtown Primary PTA meeting scheduled to run one hour has entered its seventh. A recently-relocated Island Bay mother arrived with a thermos and, witnesses say, 'a great deal to say about the sausage sizzle.'

The woman, Fiona Ellery-Watts, moved up from Wellington in March. She has, in the words of one committee member, 'attached herself to the school like a limpet with a lanyard'. She turned up at Tuesday's meeting at 6.55pm with the thermos, a notebook, and a printed agenda.

Treasurer Bronwyn Callaghan said the trouble started with the Hellers precooked. 'She reckons we should source from a butcher in Frankton who does a fennel and pork option. I said the kids eat them with white bread and tomato sauce. She wrote something down.'

By 9.40pm, Fiona had moved on to the school zone, the pickup lane, and whether the nativity play could be 'reframed'. My late husband Gerald chaired a school board in Bishopdale for eleven years. He would have adjourned this at half past eight and been home for the news.

A committee member who asked not to be named said Fiona had refilled the thermos twice from the staffroom Zip. 'It's kombucha,' she whispered. 'She brought a starter culture. To a PTA meeting.'

As of Wednesday morning, the meeting had not formally ended. Fiona was last heard proposing a subcommittee on snack policy. The thermos was still not empty.