Featherston Community Board update

Warren Maxwell

Tēnā rā koutou good people of Featherston. Firstly I am so very grateful for being elected onto this passionate, forward-thinking whanau, arā, the Featherston Community Board. I am in constant awe of both the broad scope of lived expertise, and earnest fervour for Featherston that this group has. Our animated meetings segue between both current issues and visionary aspirations, but always with the constructive intent on ‘doey’ and not just ‘hui’.

Like all of you, we all want Featherston to thrive. I always leave our FCB meetings feeling even more fired up after sharing ideas and aroha for Featherston. Where other towns or regions may already have a particular aesthetic, I believe Featherston is a partially sketched masterpiece - bursting in anticipation, waiting for us, as a community, to create our own Featherston vibe. Our rich Māori history, Heritage & Fell museum, military history and Booktown festival have all already laid some great foundations to build upon. But there is so much more potential for generations to come.

We have had some good engagement with community members coming along to our FCB forums (non-minuted) to share ideas and thoughts; better street signage to make Featherston safer for pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders; development of Bucks Road camp ground; concerns around water fluoridation; the possibility of tarsealing Underhill Rd due to higher useage from cyclists and motorists - all great contributions to uplift Featherston. As we know, initiatives take time and money and in these very frugal times, we need to be extra sensitive around where those limited rates based funds get spent. Tightening belts and going back to basics might be the collective mantra for now. On that note I am pleasantly surprised at how excited I get driving past all of the infrastructure work being done on the Donald St waste water pump and pipes. Yaaaa-Bloody-Hoooo!!!!! ... who would’ve thought that fixing waste water pipes could have such an emotional response!

We would like to encourage any Featherston community groups to come along to our FCB forums to connect and see how we might support in any way. FCB are also very keen to gauge interest from any youth who might be interested in contributing perpsectives into our town’s development. Please email me if you are keen to discuss what is involved warren.maxwell@swdc.govt.nz

Recent community grants have been awarded to establishing a community garden, Wairarapa Winter Jackets, South Wairarapa Pipe Band and also our 2023 Featherston Matariki festivities coming up in July. Matariki was a great success last year and FCB are super excited to support this important kaupapa again. A very special event will be happening this year with Papawai Haukainga, in partnership with Five Town Trails Trust erecting a five metre ‘pou’ in Clifford Square, celebrating Nukupewapewa who was a very influential rangatira here in the early 1800’s. Funding was secured through Eastern Central Communities Trust. This special event will be held at dawn, Friday July 14 and everyone is welcome. Saturday July 15 will see the return of our Featherston community hangi at ANZAC Hall which FCB have sponsored.

As we all know, councils all over NZ are finding themselves between a rock and a hard place; for multitudes of complex reasons, including post-global pandemic economics, historic negligence and climate change. There are no hidden agendas - only massive challenges. Maybe an opportune time for us all to ‘think outside the box’ and engage in more sustainable initiatives like community gardens, environmental and circular economies with our mokopuna (grandchildren) in mind.