‘If it’s good for your family it will be good for the district’
New Plymouth’s deputy mayor Richard Jordan talks to Helen Harvey about family, toys and his vision for the region’s future.
Richard Jordan makes toys.
His favourite is a racing car. It doesn’t have a fancy name. It’s simply called a Large Racer.
The original was made in 1941 and modelled on a 1930s racing car.
Jordan makes it using the original mould.
But he doesn’t have a complicated reason for favouring this toy over all the others. ‘‘I just like it. It’s simple.’’ Simple is how he describes his previous life as a dairy farmer.
Nothing about him is complicated, Jordan, 67, says.
He is a toy making, ex farmer who just happens to be deputy mayor of New Plymouth.
And the ideals he stands for and the reasons he is in local politics are simple – family and progress.
‘‘If it’s good for your family I can just about guarantee 99.9 per cent it will be good for the district as well. You always want something better for your kids.’’
Jordan and his wife of 46 years, Anne, have four children and 12 grandchildren.
Everyone should all be striving to leave the world a better place for our children and grandchildren, he says.
‘‘If you want a community to look and feel good and do well you have to get involved.’’
Jordan started getting involved when his kids started school, he says. At first it was the schools and sport clubs. The family are quite sporty and Saturdays are spent watching the grandkids play netball, rugby, soccer...
He played rugby back in the day, he says.
‘‘I was a flanker and as I got older I ended up as a prop, so that might tell you something.
‘‘I like to play the odd game of golf. And I am literally a hacker – with a capital H.’’
He played the age card when asked if he still played squash, but says he might give it ago again if someone bet him a few beers.
Jordan used to be involved with the squash club ‘‘a little bit’’. He was a member of the Lions Club and in the 1990s was chairman of Main Streets, a community organisation that later evolved into Crossroad Promotions, which is now Inglewood First.
While he was chairman of Main Streets, Inglewood was looking for an icon to hang it’s hat on, he says.
‘‘We were trying to get a point of difference. And at that stage we knew we had Fun Ho! Toys that was a New Zealand icon and it was made in Inglewood. We bought what was then the small museum and turned it into a bigger one.’’
It was during his stint with Main Streets he was elected onto the Inglewood Community Board.
‘‘Community boards are essential. They’re the grass roots of our democracy.
‘‘We did the upgrade of the CBD. It looks nice. It looks like it is healthy and going well and there is a good reason for that.
‘‘Then there was a second bridge that went across the Waionganaiti Stream.’’
A couple of years after Inglewood took over the Fun Ho! Museum, Jordan decided to buy all the gear off the factory and start making the toys.
‘‘Did I have any toy making experience? Absolutely not. Had I worked in a foundry before? Absolutely not. Dairy farmers can do anything.’’
Jordan began his dairy farming career as a sharemilker and progressed up to owning his own farm, sitting on the board of Inglewood-based Moa-Nui Dairies Co-op along the way.
The farming and toy making overlapped – he started making toys about 2000 and he sold the farm about 10 years ago.
He taught himself how to make the toys, he says.
‘‘I knew the old foundry foreman and I asked him a few questions a couple of times. I use the old moulds and go from raw ingot to finished toy. I didn’t reinvent the wheel at all. It’s good fun – the name says it all. We provide most of the toys for kindergartens, that’s probably our biggest market.’’
In the foundry Jordan wears overalls. But usually, summer or winter, he can be found wearing shorts, work boots and a t-shirt. Except when he is on council business, then he wears a conservative black suit, which hides his bright yellow socks. At Monday’s council meeting he wore a pink tie.
‘‘I like bright colours. We don’t need to be dull. And I can’t wear a pink suit and a black tie. Well I could but no, I won’t. I’ll settle for a tie.’’
He has brighter ones, but former councillor Keith Allum used to joke the ties were blinding him, Jordan says.
This is Jordan’s second term on the New Plymouth District Council. He originally stood for council because there were a few issues he wanted input into.
‘‘A few years ago it was the PIF (perpetual investment fund). I thought we were over drawing the bank. I’m exceptionally pleased with the way the perpetual fund is operated now.’’
He came back for a second term because he had unfinished business. ‘‘I think the district now needs to look to the future, it has to grow. It can’t stand still. It’s got to be growing. Taranaki has amazing potential.
‘‘I’m chairman of the performance committee. It oversees the dollars and cents which is the area I enjoy. I like to live within my means and that doesn’t necessarily mean low rates increases it means that the money is spent wisely.’’ It’s a good council, he says. ‘‘We have a new mayor who is very strong on family and progress and I think he has got the right buttons. They are very important to me and I think they are important to the majority of people.’’
When his young grandchildren have young children he hopes there will be ample opportunity for them to live close to the outdoors, he says.
‘‘That the sea and the mountain and these other attractions we have now will be developed further, enhanced. And they’ll be really proud to say that we come from Taranaki. And that they’ll be healthy and safe.’’