Positive Raetihi meet

Ruapehu Bulletin, 27 June 1989, Page 3

Positive Raetihi meet

Raetihi people are planning a meeting for next week, Thursday 6 July, to talk about how to chase away the doom and gloom some people seem to be suffering from. The town has suffered enough economically in the last few years, with closures including Farmers, Postbank and the threatened closure of the Post Office, and the downgrading of the BNZ to and agency. All these moves have been made in the cities with little, if any, consulta-

tion with locals. Leading from a meeting held earlier that started the battle to save as much of the Post Office services as possible, a group of Raetihi people have decided to do something positive and get together to talk about ways to turn the town around. They want to let people know that those decisions were not made by Raetihi people and to ask for the support of Raetihi people. The meeting

organisers say other towns have reversed the trend and are onto a positive spiral. They cite Balclutha that had cutbacks and closures threatening the town's very existence but that people there have started a "positive snowball" rolling. "For Raetihi to keep on growing, the town needs the support of the community," says one of the organisers of the meeting. "That means support for community groups and clubs as well as shops."