Welcome to the Queenstown.com Weekly. It is with an element of sadness that we bid a farewell to one of the team here and wish Brooks good luck on his future travels to which I'll elaborate on inside this edition. Also, we've got the lastest on the skatepark and the funding that may be heading it's way, a reminder of when daylight savings starts. And to top it off, we have the headlines for the week that's been.
In June of last year, we hired our first ever marketing and promotions manager, Brooks Conkle. He bids farewell to the place he's made his home for the past year. Just like a fair percentage of people that come here in passing and end up staying, brooks fell in love with the area. From here, Brooks heads off to Christchurch to see Jack Johnson in concert before heading over to Sydney for three weeks, then California with a brief foray into Mexico, and onwards to sweet home Alabama. The team here at Queenstown.com wish Brooks the best of luck, and the most awesome of times in his future travels and adventures.
In a meeting of the QLDC community services committee on the 5th of March, a unanimous vote was passed regarding using money left over in the budget to fill in the shortfall in funds for the Queenstown Skatepark. I called Cr Cath to confirm a few details, and this is what I learned:
- Resource consent was going to be required to build the storage depot in the Queenstown gardens
- The council voted to underwrite the completion of the skate bowl using the unspent depot funding
- The vote was unanimous
- The benefit for the communities youth, and the fact that this would create an inexpensive activity option, as well as adventure tourism marketing potential, were all factors that helped the success of the vote
- The decision isn't final as it must be passed at the full council meeting on the last Friday of the month, although it is expected to pass
- It is still hopeful that the community will contribute to the funding needed as several parties had expressed interest
- People with practical skills that may be able to help on site are asked to contact either Cr Cath Gilmour, or Jason Parkes
With this, it finally looks as though the funding is secured and that the skatepark will be completed. A big thank you also goes out to Kiri Mains and her sister Marama. Kiri has 3 boys who are all keen skateboarders and are chomping at the bit too see the park completed. Kiri and Marama have donated $500! The total community contributions are now viewable on the Our Town page.
As Autumn kicks in, the end of daylight savings draws near. This normally would have had happened during the weekend, but thanks to the first change in daylight savings since 1990, we still have another three weeks left. So enjoy the after work sun while you can, it will be getting darker and colder as we head into winter. And as I head out, here the headlines of press releases we received over the last week and a half:
My final comment would be that we are heading into a buyers market in regards to real estate in Queenstown. According to Quotable Values figures, property prices aren't increasing like they have been. Although I have no direct facts to quote, but anyone who keeps an eye on the Property Press for example, would agree that houses are becoming not only harder to sell, but are staying on the market for longer, amid plenty of price reductions, and the odd mortgagee sale. Personally, I don't see this as a short term problem, especially amid fears of potential recessions in the USA, Australia and New Zealand. How could this potentially affect the tourism market?
Nathan - Queenstown.com Editor.
We're gonna miss ya.