Take a Walk Around Your Town

I've been speaking recently with a prominent New Zealand businessman/tv personality about how to resurrect Mataura and encourage business back into the town. I had hopes that he would be able to offer some pearls of wisdom, perhaps some encouragement and avenues of investigation for us to follow. But no, unfortunately he pronounced Mataura dead and told me that we are wasting out time trying.

Today, I was walking around Mataura delivering 'The Mataura Messenger" - our monthly news sheet and it struck me how very alive Mataura is.

I was impressed by how many tidy, well cared for homes there are. I saw groups of kids playing together and enjoying the summer evening. I admired beautiful, well-tended gardens. I noticed (with some envy) how many homes have bountiful vege gardens. I strode past neighbours talking to one another. I was greeted by people I knew - and people I didn't.

Our main street may well be dilapidated and almost empty, we certainly have more than our fair share of run down homes and uncared for sections of land, and there is no doubt that apathy is hindering progress towards a stronger community. But Mataura is not dead.

I think our Businessman's idea of a thriving, successful community is different from those of us that live here. We aren't looking to create a megacity generating huge profits (although huge profits would be nice I guess) and we don't need to be the centre of the universe to have achieved our goals. What we are looking to create is a community where people have choices. We want to be able to run our businesses in our town and have some control over our community destiny.

It will take time to rebuild our community. But there are certainly people who are prepared to invest their time to make a difference. It will also take perseverance and continued effort. Fortunately there are people who have been working towards this goal for sometime already and who are willing to keep fighting the good fight on behalf of the community.

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Mataura Planning Day a Success

This weekend I took part in the 'Imagine Mataura' planning day in our fabulous new Community Centre.

The event was hosted by Imagine Chicago President, Bliss Brown and was the most positive and inspiring day.

It was attended by some 80 or so locals who were keen to see Mataura going places and determined to make a difference. Dr Jack Phillips, a retired American Dentist who owns the majority of commercial properties on our main street was not in attendence and had not arranged for a representative to attend in his stead. It is a shame that he did not make the effort as it was a truly fantastic day and I'm sure he could have contributed a great deal.

The most amazing thing I noticed was that despite the diversity of people in attendance, the hopes and dreams we all held for Mataura were essentially similar. Most of them revolved around people, increased community connections and building a town that we all could be proud of.

The planning day has generated so many wonderful ideas for the future of our town. There are groups meeting together to help achieve our goals for the community. These include organising events for the community such as free video nights in the Community Centre and a Talent Show, discussing how to improve Mataura's image and show the world what a great town we are, setting up activities for the kids in our town and starting a business co-op and community garden.

It really is exciting times for Mataura!!

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