I have long held and touted the view, that money is the most corrosive product known to man.
I have seen families disintegrate over money – despite there being plenty to go around. I have seen businesses collapse over silly arguments about money and I’ve seen organisations disappear completely because of petty arguments about money.
And now Napier’s most iconic event – our Art Deco Weekend is under threat and you guessed it – it is all about money.
The Art Deco Trust has run Art Deco weekend events for years. They’ve done a good job and the event has grown in stature year by year.
The Hawke’s Bay Vintage Car Club has run a vintage car rally on the same weekend for over 20 years. The car rally is now recognised as the premier vintage car weekend in New Zealand and attracts well over 300 entries. The Vintage Car Club committee works for about 9 months of the year putting the rally together and it has become the major fundraising activity for the Club.
The Art Deco Trust’s Art Deco Weekend benefits from the 300 plus vintage cars in the city and the 1,000 odd period costumed participants all here for the vintage car rally. The vintage car rally benefits because the entrants can enjoy the wonderful events put on by the Art Deco Trust. Where, therefore you may well ask, is the problem?
The Art Deco Trust would claim, they are professional event organisers and therefore they should control the whole weekend including the car parade.
The Vintage Car Club would claim that it’s all about the safety of the people watching the parade – they just want assistance with crowd control, road closure, parking etc., for “their” parade.
The truth is that it’s all about money. The Art Deco Trust has decided that they, being in possession of the address list of previous rally entrants, can control the parade – charge the entry fee and parking fee and pocket the surplus from the weekend.
The Vintage Car Club is saying bugger you – this is our Vintage Car Rally, it is our principal fundraising activity and we will take our events out of the city.
So it’s all about money. One organisation trying to hijack the activity of another because of money and the other digging in their toes totally – you guessed it – because of money.
It is just a shame that wise cool heads could not get together and come up with a compromise that would suit all.
At the end of the day the event will suffer and no-one will benefit.
Sad really.
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December 12th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
What does the car rally consist of? Is it the run down the main street or is it a seperate rally run over the same weekend? Can u send all details on the rally please??? I am appalled that the vintage car parade cant run thru town due to money- after all this is the main event of the weekend i wud say, its something everyone can enjoy. Shame on the people who wud try to stop it