Uncorked: Plan around what’s truly unique

At the time I usually arrive at the office, I had breakfast Friday with 20 business-minded Marlburians. Brekkie was just the inducement, though – the reason for the gathering was for Council and the Chamber of Commerce to glean input about economic development.

Please do not nod off already. (Try coffee; it helped the group!) As I hope this write-up does, the session picked up steam and yielded some eye-opening insights.

The article on the Business page – “Rising tide for all boats” – captures the broad strokes. To quickly summarise: Outreach, including workshops, will inform the “refresh” of the Marlborough Economic Well-Being Strategy 2022-2032 which Council hone for a spring release.

Having attended such sessions, but in the States, I intended to be a fly on the wall. Colin Bass had other ideas; the facilitator urged active participation. So, I served as scribe for the front-right table and chimed up a time or two … maybe 10.

I sat with Hamish Thomas, Sank Macfarlane and Dorien Vermaas – a retailer (Thomas’s), a manufacturer (Puro) and a strategist (Council), respectively. Three guesses on who advocated hardest for the CBD! He was preaching to the converted, though, as Town Centre fit squarely into our collective peg-hole of leveraging Marlborough’s unique features.

“Unique” is the key word. We all have something we deem superior in this region. So do residents in their own regions. If a local aim is growing the economic base – along with, as another table suggested, the population base – Marlborough needs to prioritise and emphasise what is really, truly different about our district.

Obvious? Self-evident? Perhaps. Maybe just as obviously self-evident, people head to places where they think they should go. Perception shapes reality. Connecting with them is key.

Many “opportunities” identified Friday morning interrelate to what Marlburians and visitors experience here, however long they’re here. From the fabric of the discussions, I hope this thread weaves its way into the strategy refresh.

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