Jon Mayson has lived in the Bay for 45 years. In that time, he's held a number of roles, including chief executive of the Port of Tauranga. He has since served on a number of boards, most recently Ziwipeak, Port of Auckland and New Zealand Trade & Enterprise.
He's passionate about the importance of arts and culture in our community and the role local businesses play in that.
Your career could have taken you anywhere in the world. Why did you stay in the Bay of Plenty?
I went away to serve (in the Merchant Navy) at the age of 16 and the ship that I was serving on used to come to Tauranga to load export cargo. It was here I met my wife - she was a nurse at the Tauranga Hospital. When eventually we got married we made the decision that we would come back to Tauranga after we'd spent time offshore and I was still at sea. So we did, in 1972, and we've been here ever since. We've raised three daughters here. This community has been very good to us. I've felt privileged to be part of what's gone on in Tauranga. I've got no desire to live anywhere else.
And how do you feel about where Tauranga and the region is at now?
I think it's matured a lot in the last four or five years, so we can now actually have a conversation about the museum, we can acknowledge that Paradox has been a phenomenal success. We've got the art gallery and the Arts Festival Trust and Creative Tauranga all working together and actually pulling in the same direction. It's not being run by a bunch of egos. People might say 'well, I'll never go to a museum' but actually, it's not about you. It's about having the appropriate fabric in our communities.
So, arts and culture is part of our every day existence, whether we realise it or not, and this strategy is just about recognising that and valuing it at a higher level?
Absolutely, we all have stories to be told, and culture (and its expression through art) is around how we actually tell those stories for the benefit of others. And if we don't tell those stories, how do we expand our knowledge?
And, really, how do we challenge our intellectual capacity if we don't do that? How do we lift people out of poverty if we don't give them the opportunity to participate in telling their stories, too? It's so interwoven in the mosaic that creates Tauranga.
If we go right back to when the Arts Festival started, and Port of Tauranga came on board as an initial sponsor ... why did we do that? It wasn't because we were a bunch of elitist art supporters, it was because, as a large business in the Bay, it was important that we were seen to walk the talk around being a good corporate citizen and supporting something that was getting off the ground that was going to add colour and variety to the city's fabric. It brought a whole different facet to what Tauranga could look forward to achieving.
So you feel it's important for businesses to support the arts, as well as councils?
I remember the first Arts Festival when I was chairman and we brought Earth from Above, the incredible photo exhibition we put down The Strand. It was amazing. People just poured down the streets. And that was there for the community, for nothing, the same as Trustpower's photos that have been down there.
It's not as if business doesn't support the arts - you look at the sponsors and patrons for the Arts Festival, there's quite a wide variety of people who are passionate about making a difference. And in the end, art and culture is a way that we, as a growing, vibrant city, can express ourselves in a different way. And that's important, that we are expressing ourselves in a way that we believe can make a positive difference, not just in the city but in the lives of the people that are here.
That's what it's about - it's about human interaction, it's about taking people away from their telephones and TVs and actually having an intelligent conversation, listening to intelligent people telling their story, or coming to the Readers and Writers' Festival - what an amazing experience that was. It's fair to say that not every artistic endeavour will ring every individual's bells, we have particular areas that we're each interested in. Some of it leaves me for dead! But I'll go along and I'll be challenged by it.
So diversity within an Arts & Culture Strategy is important?
There's been so much shared history between the two predominant cultures in this region. It's important that there is genuine participation by local iwi in this, without feeling it's tokenism and without feeling it's being dominated by Maori interests, but that it is around joint stories.
It's all about storytelling for you, isn't it?
Think of the stories that exist around Mauao and the battles that took place. Now I've heard a few of them, but those stories are not widely known and are not told.
The efforts around the Battle of Tauranga and the Battle of Gate Pa and everything else.
We're starting to tell those stories and they're bloody important. And so are the stories of the first European settlers, Tapsell arrived in Maketu, the stories of the creation of the Port and the activities at estuary when it was an RNZAF training base - a lot of people don't know that. They don't know that Maori were, after the initial settlers, actually incredibly successful business people, they were traders, they owned ships, they were trading to Australia, they owned flour mills - incredible things.
What do you see for the future of the Bay?
I'd like to see the vibrancy that we know exists in this community expressed through every facet of whatever this city turns out to be. It needs to be expressed in many, many different ways. From a business perspective, the ability to attract talent to a growing city ... if we want to attract people to come and live in this region (to create a growing economy which, providing it's built on a sustainable basis, is the essence of a successful society) then we actually have to deliver to them the things that are important in a community and, generally, you'll find research has shown that people will be looking for expressions in art and culture that they would find in a major centre.
I'd also like to think that some of the physical attractions of the Bay can be woven into the stories that we tell. You know, the cycleways and so on can help people understand the environment they live in, understand the history that surrounds them. I'm just fascinated with history ... it's how the stories are told that bring meaning to people. We need interactive storytelling, for want of a better term.
I think it's important that councils are on board with a clear understanding of what an arts and culture strategy should look like. Like any city, we're going through growing pains, and we can look back at the neglect of previous councils in not providing infrastructure and assets, cultural or otherwise, for the city. For too long they've been influenced by those who believe that the only role for the city is to keep the rates down. Look at cities like Whanganui - it has an art gallery and a museum, an opera house, sports arenas and a population the third of this city, we look at Katikati and their own museum, or little settlements in Taranaki that have a world-class museum. We're not telling our story.
Storytelling is the essence of an arts and culture strategy. This strategy is about delivering on our ability to tell our stories and to express ourselves as a people and express joy and passion and pride. That is the essence.
To read the Arts & Culture Strategy and have your say visit www.creativebop.org.nz, email artsandculturestrategy@gmail.com or pop in to the Creative Bay of Plenty office on Willow St. Submissions close at 5pm, June 30.