We will be unforgettable

This week I had a conversation with a very negative person. I have to admit I came away feeling very shaky; maybe it was a good thing as I am now more committed to our Gatehouse project than ever.

The Matamata Public Relations Association’s (PRA) committee is made up of forwardthinking, positive people who have a longterm, clear objective which is to make Matamata ‘‘unforgettable’’.

At risk of repeating myself, we want to STOP TRAFFIC, and we have already achieved that by building the first stage of the Gatehouse.

However our dream is to complete the Gatehouse, to make it absolutely beautiful and stop even more visitors in our town to create economic benefit for our local businesses which will trickle down to the entire community.

The PRA works for the community, in fact we work very hard, pay wages and our bills, (especially the IRD).

Accumulated funds must go into community projects.

Finalising the Gatehouse will cause short sharp financial pain for us but only in the very short term as we will recover very quickly.

Thank you to Mr Thrupp for his very kind donation.

He and Ruth are now on our VIP list and will be noted in our Contribution Book.

If you would like to help us by contributing, even in some small way, please let me know.

The building process is on target, the steel goes in this week and then things will really start to move.

In October the Wellington boys (and girls) will be back to do all the ‘‘flash’’ stuff. But it’s business as usual while the building progresses.

We are hosting 150 i-SITE Visitor Centre conference delegates this week. They are coming to Matamata to see our beautiful Gatehouse, naturally we are the most unique i-SITE Visitor Centre in the country, a fact we are very proud of.

Oh, and we had a very unusual visitor last weekend. Couldn’t wait for the doors to open at 9am so tried to tap on my office window! Check out the photo on our facebook page.

I was just about to send this to print when an unbelievable offer has been made to us by a very generous man who is prepared to help the PRA with the Gatehouse project. So, yes, there are some amazing, positive people in our town. Will let you know who that man is in my next column. But he’s such a nice man, you may have already guessed!

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