Waipa flies flag at Fieldays

CARTOONIST David Henshaw starts a new work on Waipa District Council’s Fieldays site. TC170608DT07

Waipa District Council took the opportunity to promote itself and the district at the 40th anniversary Fieldays.

Business facilitator Phyllis Huitema lead a team of staff manning a site in the main pavilion. She says it was essentially a WDC ‘help desk’, with staff fielding a range of enquiries from what rules apply to setting up business in Waipa to what could be done to keep rising costs down.

Mrs Huitema says it was important Waipa have a strong presence at Fieldays considering the event had been held in our district for most of its 40 years and because agriculture was so important to the district’s economy.

An added bonus was having artist David Henshaw working on their site. Best known as the creator of rural cartoon character ‘Jock’, but also an artist and illustrator, Mr Henshaw spent four days creating boards of his rural characters — a great drawcard for the site. Mrs Huitema says Mr Henshaw was terrific with visitors, especially children, and everyone appreciated his warmth and sense of humour.

The business side of the WDC site was also a success. Mrs Huitema says there were a lot of serious enquiries, and what questions staff were not able to answer were referred to staff who had the knowledge and could respond indepth at a later date.

One of the common concerns was how our council could keep up the level of services in these times of rising prices without ‘blowing the budget’ for ratepayers.