Tommy Kapai: Reasons for living in our city still shine

Every cloud has its silver lining and when it comes to finding the silver lining of New Zealand's long white cloud, we need to look no further, in my opinion, than our own back yard - this tumeke town called Tauranga.

From the time when Tamatea arrived from afar and stepped on to the beach below Mauao, to this very day, recent arrivals and long-time loyalists - who have lived here for generations, have found what they have been looking for - their place to call home.

For Tamatea Pokaiwhenua, Tauranga was where he wanted to live. He handed the captaincy over to Tahu, who sailed the Takitimu waka south and eventually settled in what we now know as Ngai Tahu.

Tamatea had found his turangawaewae - his place to stand - and for him Tauranga was the silver lining of the long white cloud, just as it is for many of us living here today.

Many other waka followed Takitimu to Tauranga and its safe anchorage. It was welcoming.

A great place to trade, plenty of kai, an excellent place to bring up a family and the best beaches and harbour in the country.

Fast forward to today and the reasons we all live here are much the same as our founding fathers and ancestors.

These attributes made Tauranga then and now the most liveable city in the world.

But hang on a minute mate, you can't call it the most liveable city in the world. Turns out the jafas up north have adopted that tag as their vision statement and it's working really well.

So we will have to come up with a better one.

According to Max Mason, chief executive of Tauranga Chamber of Commerce, we need to create a short, inspiring vision statement that tells the world who we are and I agree.

There has been a lot of consultation and korero about this vision statement and from that Tauranga City Council have come up with eight strategic outcomes for our vision.

Now we need a vision statement to tie it all together and tell the story of Tauranga just like the clever jafas have done with "the most liveable city in the world".

Surely the story of Tauranga is all about it being the best place on the planet to live and if we were to factor in all the reasons we chose to live here, as did our forefathers, then Tauranga is the silver lining of the long white cloud.

What are our silver linings and can we link them to the strategic outcomes that were created by the Tauranga District Council?

The big kahuna of the eight outcomes was the emphasis on business and economic development. If we are to understand why Tamatea and the early Maori traders set up shop here and how we have developed our port into being the pulse of trade in the country, there is no question economic opportunities are one of the silver linings of Tauranga.

Others are pretty much the same as they have ever been, with the most important being he tangata, he tangata, he tangata - it is people, it is people, it is people, and Tauranga has an amazing collective of culturally cool, community-minded, innovative-thinking, environmentally-aware people a city could ever hope for.

Surely it is time to throw away the tag of Two Dollar Tauranga and pick up the eight pieces of our silver city that council and the community have identified.

While we are at it, let's give the tag Grey Power and God's Waiting Room the heave ho and say Hi Ho to Silver Power.

For my two bobs' worth of vision statements that many marketing gurus will have a crack at (for fat fees called consultation) we could save ourselves a few bob and adopt our vision statement as

"Tauranga - The silver lining of the long white cloud".

Sounds pretty cool to me.

But it can only happen if we can get our heads out of the clouds and see the silver lining.

broblack@xtra.co.nz