Waikato has to dig deep to mark millennium

By VANESSA BIDOIS

HAMILTON - One of the country's first big millennium events is taking shape without the help of national funding organisations.

Billed as the largest community event planned in the Waikato region, Christmas in the Heartland on December 12 will involve more than 3000 performers and an estimated audience of 50,000.

The 10-hour multicultural and multimedia pageant at the Waikato University campus will feature the largest stage and video screen ever seen in the area.

Te Aroha sculptor Carla van de Veen is carving a symbolic koru design of the Christmas family for the launch of Waikato's millennium season.

A self-taught sculptor, van de Veen is using stone donated by the Hinuera Quarry, near Matamata.

She will put the finishing touches to the work on the day of Christmas in the Heartland before it is made a permanent fixture in a location yet to be decided.

Christmas in the Heartland organisers are disappointed that the $250,000 extravaganza has been excluded from official celebrations.

Co-producer Pauline Stewart said it was a pity that the official millennium calendar of events recognised only those that began on or after December 31.

"The Christmas event is the reason our calendar says the new millennium is about to begin," said Mrs Stewart, a Presbyterian-Methodist minister.

"We're not bitter about it but we've been disappointed because when we wanted funding from the Government, they wouldn't recognise it."

Mrs Stewart said the troubles that had plagued New Year's Eve events in Gisborne and Auckland had only strengthened the value of Christmas in the Heartland's community focus.

The chairwoman of Hamilton's Year 2000 Millennium Committee, Margaret Evans, said funding applications for Christmas in the Heartland were rejected by both the Lottery Grants Board and the Government's millennium fund.

"We've really tried to make this a hugely important event and we think there is a funny irony that we were turned down because it was not on December 31," Mrs Evans said.

The Lottery Grants Board was unable to comment yesterday but the manager of the Millennium Office, Sharon van Gulik, said the official programme of events began earlier this year and did not end until 2001.

Meanwhile, more than $1 million has been contributed by sponsors to the region's two main millennium events and six other special projects.

They include a New Year's Eve carnival in downtown Hamilton, a documentary, an indigenous plant, a youth music project, a professional theatre company and a regional television station.

An official millennium information centre and store, Shop 2000, will open in Hamilton central city this Saturday.