Paihia innovators triumphant again

The Bay of Islands community trust Focus Paihia was named supreme winner of the Trustpower National Community Awards on Saturday night. Photo / Trustpower

Focus Paihia has again won national recognition for its efforts to revitalise the Bay of Islands town, this time being named supreme winner of the Trustpower National Community Awards.

The community trust, which has spent the past six years beautifying and reinvigorating Paihia, beat finalists from 24 other regions.

The award was announced at Te Papa in Wellington on Saturday night and comes just weeks after the entire town was named Community of the Year in the New Zealander of the Year Awards, based on an entry prepared by Focus Paihia.

All 25 regional finalists gave an eight-minute presentation at Victoria University. The teams were judged on that presentation and a 1000-word summary provided beforehand.

Focus Paihia was represented by Grant Harnish and Sarah Greener along with Far North Deputy Mayor Tania McInnes. The trust's entry focused on the transformation of what had been an unsightly waterfront car park into an attractive and heavily used green space with boardwalks, a public piano, giant board game, fountain, coloured lighting and a giant illuminated map.

Trustpower community relations co-ordinator Suzi Luff said Focus Paihia was a great example of a group taking ownership of an opportunity and developing it for the best outcome for its community.

The new park, called Horotutu/Our Place, had revitalised the waterfront while lifting tourism and local pride.

More than 250 volunteers contributed more than 9000 hours to the project, she said.

The judges included Gary Johnson of Volunteering NZ, 2012 Senior New Zealander of the Year Malcolm Cameron, Student Volunteer Army founder and 2012 Young New Zealander of the Year Sam Johnson, and Radio NZ's Jim Mora.

The other finalists also took part in judging, contributing 50 per cent of the final score.

Focus Paihia received $2500 and a $500 voucher for not-for-profit sector training. This year's runner-up was Central Otago Reap's Sticks n' Stones.

Click on the image for a gallery of photos from Paihia's last award celebration:

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The judges' comments about Focus Paihia included:

- Great work in drawing a community together, look forward to seeing this replicated across other areas and regions.
- Outstanding achievement, the sky is the limit!
- Excellent presentation, a shining achievement with huge and lasting community impact.
- Excellent use of community and resource. You have been successful in bringing community together.
- Very good project, utilised well by locals and visitors. A real asset.