It was both a privilege and an honour to conduct a joint Citizenship and Civic Honours Ceremony in the Freyberg Lounge of the Levin War Memorial Hall on Friday, 28 March 2003. Council has operated a civic honours award system since 1995 and it was pleasing to make awards to outstanding citizens who have provided voluntary service to our community and duly recognised for the 2002 year.
The recipients were Helen and Collis Blake for their work with the Levin Adventure Park Charitable Trust under the Recreation and Sport/Community Affairs sections and Mr Cornelis (Cor) Slobbe of Foxton Beach for his work with the Foxton Windmill Trust, also under the Community Affairs section.
Helen and Collis Blake were jointly awarded for the vision they had for the old Levin School site, which had presented a very negative image of Levin with its deserted buildings and grounds that were subject to increased vandalism and deterioration. The Levin Adventure Park Charitable Trust has worked determinedly to raise funds to establish what is now seen as an extremely popular, professionally run and worthwhile facility meeting the education, physical and social needs for all ages and sectors of the greater florowhenua community. Helen and Collis have worked tirelessly and positively to achieve the Trust's initial aims and continue to work on a daily basis on this project in a voluntary capacity.
The second award to Cor Stobbe was to recognise the Large voluntary contribution he has made as a member of the Foxton Windmill Trust's vision to build a full size working Dutch flour mill in Foxton. Apart from constructing two scale models of the proposed mill to assist in the marketing of the project, he also took full charge of the construction, consulting with professional engineers on design and building codes, as well as preparing the working drawings for the rather complex upper timber structure.
To emphasise the attention to detail and dedication that Cor has provided to this project, it should be noted that one of the models took 600 hours to construct. This clearly mirrors the attention to the detail that has been similarly applied to the full sized structure.
The civic honours that have been bestowed upon these three recipients should not belittle the wide range of community service from the other eight applicants. It is clearly evident to me as the District Mayor, we have much to be thankful for within our District when we have so many people providing long and dedicated service in our many communities that make up our District.
I am sure that you will also convey your own personal congratulations to the three Civic Honour recipients for 2002.
Tom Robinson
District Mayor
