Te Awamutu-Kihikihi Community Board
Local elections are integral to get the right people elected to represent our communities and get the outcomes we want. It was wonderful to see the number of voters increase this year, indicating more interest.
Many thanks for giving each of us your vote. We are privileged to be serving you and are looking forward to achieving positive results on your behalf this triennium.
Ange Holt
I am very proud to be back as chair of the community board and to be leading this great team of people who are all very passionate and care deeply about Te Awamutu, Kihikihi and the Kakepuku district. With three experienced members in Jill Taylor, John Woods and Kane Titchener, new, young, and fresh perspectives from Liam Bullen and strong support for community boards in our councillors Shane Walsh and Dean Taylor, I am hopeful together we will achieve some great community outcomes for you.
Community boards are all about local, with our primary role, advocating to council for our community. Each side of the district have a team who can push for the things that matter most to our communities and support those needs. So please feel welcome to contact any of us to support you with any ideas or issues you may have related to council activities. We welcome you to bring your proposals to our meetings or just join us in person or online, as all meetings are streamed live and are also recorded.
Councillors, once elected, are all about Waipā and the bigger picture, so they need to look at the impact of spending and needs across the district.
We had our first meeting on November 12 where we were all sworn in and the chair selected. We want to get things moving, so are getting together informally to start our strategic planning process this week. We have also attended an initial meet and greet of both community boards and had some training in a number of aspects of our roles. Local Government has a few quirky rules and regulations we need to understand and abide by!
Coming up next week will be a presentation to both boards by the group managers from council to outline their works programmes over the next triennium. This will be a great opportunity for us to understand what they do and most importantly how our plans will fit in with what they currently have planned.
This will be followed by our meeting on December 9. Council has a break for Christmas and we will return in February ready to start implementing our plans which will reflect what our community wants.
The next three years will be tough with restrictions around funding and ongoing changes from central government that impact us. I am confident with a solid innovative plan, this great team and your support we can make improvements to the effectiveness of community boards. Have community voices heard at the council table and be part of making Te Awamutu, Kihikihi and Kakepuku even better places to live.
Te Awamutu-Kihikihi Community Board, from left Dean Taylor, Jill Taylor, Liam Bullen, Kane Titchener, John Wood, Ange Holt, Shane Walsh.
