Twenty years ago, founder and former editor Kate Coughlan and her small band launched this great magazine. In celebration of its 20th year of publication, we asked Kate to cast her mind back to its earliest days.

I’m sitting exactly where I wrote my first editorial for the launch issue of NZ Life & Leisure all those years ago. Staying with the same dear friends in the same secluded spot in the Bay of Islands.

What a pleasure to be asked by today’s editorial team, Lucinda and Sarah, to contribute to this special issue. Celebrating 20 years gives me an excuse to enjoy the many memories. Right from that first issue I have been in awe of the achievements and hard work of the many people featured.

As often happens with life’s most significant moments, I have a clear recollection of creating the first issue and what I aspired to achieve with the magazine. I also remember my nervousness at whether I’d succeed or not. There were many challenges ahead.

It was a time of change and optimism in our society. I’d spent a decade editing NZ House & Garden, seeing the interest in home décor explode after the end of generations of import controls and a rapidly expanding array of the world’s goods arriving on our shores. Finally New Zealanders were able to create their homes in unique ways that reflected their personalities. And they took to this with great gusto.

However, I felt there were new forces abroad and wanted to create a magazine for this new era, one that reflected the times. Tourism was about to become the world’s largest industry and many traditional businesses were facing, or were soon to face, disruptive change. The long period of post-war stability (some say predictability) was coming to an end and many of my readers were ready to embrace a new way of seeing things.

They wanted to be inspired by the achievements of others beyond kitchen cabinetry, fancy laundries and flash settees. They wished to know how interesting people lived their lives. What businesses they created, what obstacles they overcame, what they believed in, where they failed and where they succeeded. I was invigorated and believed New Zealand’s future would be enhanced by embracing the change.

‘The magazine still seeks to celebrate  people from the length and breadth of the country whose goals are bigger than self-aggrandisement and whose hard work is legendary.’

I wanted to help this new Aotearoa New Zealand flourish in ways that might benefit from higher-value exports, sophisticated tourism offerings, the embracing of all strands of our cultural heritage, from vibrant artistic endeavours and achievements in IT. A great magazine could put its shoulder to the wheel and show readers the innovative strides being made by farmers, horticulturists, aquaculturists, rocket scientists, artists … clever individuals from many different disciplines and from across the land finding new ways of earning a living, creating new offerings New Zealand could take to the world.

If we could tell great and beguiling stories within a beautifully presented magazine, we could help inspire this growth and prosperity. With the country’s best photographers and writers and a small team second to none in skill and commitment, we launched NZ Life & Leisure in May 2005. It went on to prove its worth; readers and subscribers noting with great pride the multitude of impressive New Zealanders filling its handsome pages over the subsequent years. ‘We feel more optimistic about our country after NZ Life & Leisure lifts our spirits and shows what is possible,’ wrote reader Martha James from Feilding in 2008, perfectly encapsulating how we all felt about it.

The magazine still seeks to celebrate people from the length and breadth of the country whose goals are bigger than self-aggrandisement and whose hard work is legendary, who care about their country and its future, and whose efforts make a difference.

I noted in the initial editorial that anything is possible and everything changes, so too did change come for me, and for the magazine. Last year new owners Lucinda and Sarah moved its headquarters to Christchurch and set about creating their vision for its future. This is the way of the world and I am very glad that they have kept me involved in finding stories and writing for it. What a privilege and what fun to talk to our country’s most interesting people and share their stories with you.

Here’s to the next two decades of a vibrant Life & Leisure keeping us all informed and hopeful about the future.