Greytown scooped the top award at last Friday night’s Beautiful Awards gala dinner at the Craggy Range Vineyard in Hastings. Greytown won Most Beautiful Small Town (population under 5000) and was picked ahead of Raglan and Whirinaki. The judges said “This small town is definitely a gem of the Wairarapa.” Mayor Viv Napier and Leigh Hay, Chair, GCB attended the event.
The awards, run by the Keep New Zealand Beautiful charitable trust, recognise and celebrate positive actions taken by communities in local and urban areas to protect and enhance their local environments. The application process involved submitting information on environmental action, community beautification, heritage conservation, community engagement, and historical beauty and tourism. Each entry also had to put together a visual tour, made up of photos and/or video, of their town which illustrated the results of the hard work.
The submission was spearheaded by Leigh Hay, Chair, Greytown Community Board. She said “the real heroes were the community groups, businesses and individuals who formed the basis for our submission. When we were reviewing the submission we were staggered at the number of projects that had been done in Greytown during the time frame”
The following groups, businesses and individuals were part of our submission and/or completed projects between Sept 2016-Aug 2017. Adam Blackwell & Daryl Watt, Barry & Sarah Saunders, Cobblestones Museum, Destination Wairarapa, Emporos, Fresh Choice, Greytown Community Board, Greytown Early Years, Greytown Gardening Group, Greytown Historic Trust, Greytown Little Theatre & Kuranui College, Greytown Primary School, Greytown Rail Trail Trust, Hall Clothing, Jan Eagles and Friends of Stella Bull Park, Peter Rewi-The Papawai – Mangarara Stream Restoration Project, Sue & Mike Perry, The Blue School, The MENZ Shed, The Saddlery, Tree Advisory Group, WCM Legal.
Leigh Hay also thanked Daryl Watt and Adam Blackwell for their amazing help in putting together the presentation and the production of the Greytown video. “Many of the finalists had spent thousands of dollars on their submission, in sharp contrast to Greytown who spend nothing. It was all done for the love of Greytown” she said.
Other winners were Havelock North (best suburb), Fielding (best town over 10,000) and Masterton (best city).
Mayor Viv Napier said she was ecstatic about the result and it’s a culmination of all the hard work that businesses and community groups have done throughout the year.
