Раглан: Мекептік мектеп және серфинг орталығы

the electorate

Raglan Area School is a co educational state composite school covering years 1 to 13, with a roll of as of There have been schools at Raglan since 1866. The current school opened as Raglan District High School in 1937. There are also primary schools in the nearby settlements of Te Mata, Te Uku and Waitetuna, it is very common in recent years for students to move from the Te Mata, Te Uku and Waitetuna primary schools to RAS when they reach high school due to it being a nearby, bicultural and accepting school full of students that have often already met their contemporaries from Te Mata, Te Uku and Waitetuna.

Raglan is best known for its surf. Eight kilometres from the Raglan township is a series of surf breaks including Indicators, Whale Bay, Manu Bay, Vortex Bay. Manu Bay was featured in the 1966 movie The Endless Summer and in the 2010 movie Last Paradise. The traditional name for Manu Bay is 'Waikeri', meaning surging or swirling waters. The former native reserve was bought for a recreation reserve in 1971. Indicators is a left hand point break that breaks for up to 600m, from 2 to 10 feet+ (Hawaiian scale). It is a long walled, fast wave with occasional barrels, particularly on the low tide. It picks up a lot of swell and is very consistent. On big days the wave can link up with the next break called Whale Bay. Whale Bay is a left hand point break that breaks up to 200m in length, from about 2 to 8 feet+. It has two sections, an inside hollow section up to about 4 feet that breaks very close to the rocks, and an outside, slower section from 4 feet up. It has been rumoured by locals to link up with the next break further down Manu Point but only on very large swells, making a potential ride of up to 2 km from the top of Indicators, which locals say has only been achieved once. Manu Bay is a left hand point break which works from 2 to 10 feet+, breaking over 300m. It has alternate hollow and wall sections, occasional barrels, and is usually about 2/3 the size of Indicators. Vortex Bay is a soft peak east of the boat ramp that sometimes breaks on low tide when the swell is too large for the main three points. There is also a beach break further down from Manu Point. Ruapuke is another beach break well to the west around the point. Raglan has hosted a world championship surfing event at Manu Bay in 1998. Raglan is also home to New Zealand's first sanctioned surf school, the Raglan Surfing School which was established in 1999.

Visual artists hold regular exhibitions at the Raglan Old School Art Centre. Fabric artists show their creations in the biennial ArtoWear competition. There is also a Raglan Arts Trail Guide with an Open Studio Weekend in late January. For Matariki there are displays of Māori art. Local art is on display in the Show Off Gallery, Kanuka Design, Matapihi Gallery, local cafes and the Raglan Old School Arts Centre. The Arts Centre is in a 19th century heritage building, the former Raglan School.

There is a regular market on the second Sunday of every month at the Raglan Old School Arts Centre in Stewart Street. This Raglan Creative Market specialises in local crafts, food and art.

There's a live music scene in Raglan. The International Soundsplash Eco Reggae Festival ran yearly in summer on the Wainui Reserve, between 2001 and 2008 and more recently, and attracted some of the biggest names in roots, reggae and dub, as well as local acts. The main venue in Raglan for live music is the Yot Club, a regular stop for NZ musicians on national tours. There is also live music at the Orca Restaurant and Bar, the Harbour View Hotel, the Raglan Club and The Old School. The New Zealand reggae bands Cornerstone Roots and Zionhill were formed in Raglan.

Whāingaroa has a variety of walks, from an easy stroll over the footbridge to the more strenuous Mount Karioi tracks. Walking has been a popular activity here since at least 1915, when the guidebook said, "An hour's walk brings one to the harbour entrance and to the sea coast. Here there is a wide sandy beach with a background of bush covered cliffs, and the picturesque Mount Karioi close at hand" and went on, "Many suitable landing places are to be found where parties may leave the launch for a ramble ashore or may picnic ‘neath the shade of the kowhai trees". (see also Walking trip resources below)

Several sections of a Town2Surf cycle lane have been built, which will link the town with Ngarunui Beach, and Te Ara Kākāriki Ocean Trails opened on 3 December 2016, providing about of mountain bike trails in a pine forest on Wainui Reserve. A to bike race, mainly on gravel roads around Mt Karioi, took place each July, from 2009 to 2021. About from Raglan, Pipiwharauroa Way has of cycle/walking track, which links to a very difficult paper road to Waitetuna.

Whāingaroa has a high proportion of environmentalists, as evidenced by the existence of several high profile environmental groups. The proportion of environmentalists in Raglan is indicated by the size of the Green Party vote, which was 28% in 2011 and rose to 30% in 2014 (266 of 867 in the Taranaki King Country constituency vote and 40 of 152 in Hauraki Waikato). In 2017 it dropped to 20% (433), but the Labour vote rose from 18% to 40% (872), when Labour also highlighted environmental issues. The environmentalism has been recognised in local government policy as, "passionate about the arts and protecting its environment".

Whāingaroa Harbour Care has planted more than 2 million trees since it started in 1995. After discussions in 1994 with the local MP and Minister for the Environment, Simon Upton, about the poor environmental state of the harbour, a meeting was held on 24 March 1995, leading to the formation of Whāingaroa Harbour Care Incorporated Society in July 1995. A plant nursery was set up on Wainui Reserve to collect eco sourced (with genes better adapted to local conditions) local seeds, grow them into native trees and plant them densely beside streams, to reduce run off of nutrients and other pollutants by up to 60%. By 2013 over 40 farmers had fenced and planted about of riparian areas. It operates a recycling center, which is open to the public and offers group tours. Actor Antonio Te Maioha, who lives in Raglan, has publicly spoken about his own involvement and Raglan's leadership in recycling. He mentioned that Raglan is one of the few towns in New Zealand with recycling bins in the main street, and describes how people he knew became involved in recycling because of Xtreme Waste's programs.

Raglan's water supply comes from a well and the nearby Waipatukahu (or Riki) Spring between Te Hutewai Rd and Omahina Creek, about south of Raglan, where water which has sunk into the volcanic rocks, seeps along the contact with the Tertiary beds. Water is chlorinated, pumped to a tank and distributed through about of pipes. Tanks at Bow St and Cornwall Rd, maintain pressure. Demand has been forecast at per day by 2034, based on a Waikato University population prediction assuming consumption of /person/day. However, in December 2015 use was averaging a day. The capacity of the spring is per day. Consent allows up to /day (the remainder maintains a flow in the short stream below the spring) from the spring and /day from the well. When last rated Raglan's water got a poor 'Ed' (unsatisfactory level of risk) rating, but work was done in 2014 to upgrade the quality.

The spring was long used as a source of fresh water. In 1862 a dam was built and it was used to power an 8 feet (2 m) waterwheel for a flaxmill. In the early 1950s the spring was again used to power a water wheel, this time pumping water for use on the farm. Several residents had bores drilled, but over half (1000) relied on tank water. In 1938, ratepayers petitioned the council for a water supply and in 1938 DSIR reported on Waipatukahu Spring where, "Beautifully clear water rises in a pool perhaps 6 ft. across on the floor of Omahina Creek at a point some up from the south end of the tidal flat and a few chains above sea level" and flow had been measured at /day, Council put in a new pump, but it could only pump /day, so in the 1959 a bore was drilled at Warihi Park, but abandoned in 1962 due to problems with flow and gas in the water. A 1959 £100,000 estimate for Riki springs supply was still considered too expensive. In the late 1980s, the Community Arts Council got a mural painted on the water tower. It was restored in 2015.

Since 1976 sewage from the town has been pumped to a treatment works to the west, with the treated effluent pumped, mainly on outgoing tides, into the mouth of the harbour. Ultra violet treatment was added in 2008 and aquamats (high surface–area polymer filters) and other upgrades in 2017, but the resource consent conditions for total suspended solids and faecal coliforms are still being breached. A proposal to use subsurface drip field irrigation, rather than disposal to sea is being considered, but may be postponed again.