Close to 1,600 attended Council and Community Expo
Tuesday 19 August 2008, 11:04AM
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Councillors, Council staff and Ambassadors were thrilled with the number of people who attended the Council and Community Expo ‘Our Neighbourhood, Our Future’ last week, with close to 1,600 through the doors.
Bright blue t-shirts provided a contrast to the grey weather last week with around 100 council and community representatives spending three days engaging with members of the public. The Expo “Our Neighbourhood, Our Future” provided an opportunity for residents and visitors to find out what Council is up to and to share their ideas on what they think is needed to ensure Taupo District has the kind of future they want for themselves and their children.
Ambassadors have spent the last month gathering information from the people on the street and this feedback, along with information collected at Expo will be pulled together and presented to Councillors for their consideration, during the development of the draft ten year plan ‘Towards 2019’.
“The idea is that we pull together a draft plan that is representative of what our community wants and the feedback collected from Expo will help us to do that. Thank you to everyone who took the time to come along and give us feedback,” said Mayor Rick Cooper.
In addition to hard copies and e-surveys, comments were even caught on video. Deputy CEO, Anne McLeod said “We wanted to provide interesting ways of gathering feedback and we thought video would be a good way to attract and encourage youth to have their say. Actually being ‘caught on film’ was popular with all ages.”
One of the busiest sections of EXPO was the ‘Council Cottage Café’ where people could sit down with their councillors and have a coffee and a chat. Councillor Doreen Blyth was there throughout Expo. “This was a nice little area to catch up with people and capture their visions and priorities for the future of the District,” she said.
The ‘Our Neighbourhood, Our Future’ Expo was free to enter and there was something for everyone including a youth area, a community art exhibition, entertainment, competitions and prizes up for grabs and lots to learn about our neighbourhoods and the future of the Taupo District.
Taupo District Council was pleased to host St Patrick’s Catholic School, Mountview Primary and Wharerangi and Guardian Resthomes. A big thank you to Taupo School of Music for providing an entertaining performance on Saturday afternoon.