Our Town Motueka gears up to promote growth

September 18th, 2015
[by David Armstrong]

The business promotion group Our Town Motueka is gearing up to tackle some of the major issues faced by local businesses in an uncertain economy.

At its AGM held yesterday a new chairman and largely new committee were elected with a clear mandate to provide better targeted assistance to retailers and service businesses.

David Ogilvie was elected unanimously to the chairmanship, adding to his existing community leadership roles as chair of Keep Motueka Beautiful and a member of the Community Board.

Outgoing chairman, Dave Moloney, used his report to detail the successes of Our Town Motueka (OTM) over the past year. Though none of them have been major breakthroughs, all have added a part to the improvement of the economy and general attractiveness of the town.

Some of these included the addition of free Wi-Fi to the central business district, the installation of classy cycle trail signs, work with the police to upgrade the security cameras, use of the hanging baskets infrastructure by other groups, being part of the ultrafast broadband initiative submission to government, and assisting with the national darts competition last month.

It was recognised however that the organisation needs to clarify its direction, and Dave spoke of workshops held in recent months to examine the role of OTM, including its mission statements and name.

Those workshops had identified three key targets: (1) marketing Motueka as a place for new business people to invest; (2) business training and Internet marketing; and (3) networking and communication within OTM and with other leading community organisations.

A competition to rename and rebrand OTM has been run over the past month or so, and it will be up to the new committee to decide if the name will be changed and if so to what.

Another urgent need Dave identified was to reinvigorate the OTM website which he said is now outdated and needs more interactivity and better showcasing of the town to visitors.

The new committee is made up of Brent Prestidge, Brent Maru, Johny O'Donnell, Angela Morris, Matt Galvin and David Armstrong. It will also include Peter Canton as representative of TDC and Paul Hawkes as representative of the Community Board.

The only debate during the meeting was one which has recurred for several years, about which businesses in town pay what targeted rate to fund OTM, and especially the role of home businesses which do not pay that rate. Related to that is whether or not the organisation should have members who are not business owners.

New chairman David Ogilvie finish the meeting urging the new committee to get cracking on the large amount of work that needs to be done. He intends to allocate roles or portfolios to each committee member to be responsible for the various aspects of the organisation's work.

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