Auckland Maritime Heritage Working Group established

You might have seen the coverage of the meeting at the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron building that kicked off the Auckland Maritime Heritage Working Group a couple of weeks ago. The initiative and meeting was organised by Tony Blake, Baden Pascoe and John Street of New Zealand's Classic Yacht Association. The New Herald Coverage was very positive in Saturday's Business pages. (Which I can't find on internet right now!) The presentation I gave to kick off the meeting and discussion was based on my experience of waterfront development at ARC and through its engagement with Sea + City. It has become clear that there is a need to integrate and coordinate the various maritime heritage iniatives that are underway - some of which have been around for a while like the Maritime Museum - and some of which are getting more organised - like the collection of classic boats. And there is more. These elements form the basis of a very strong and potential success story for Auckland waterfront development that is a visitor destination - for Aucklanders as well as for visiting tourists. But it needs recognition, organisation and support to realise that potential. Attendees at the meeting included representatives from: The Maritime Museum; Classic Yacht Association; Sanfords; Architects and heritage buildings; Historic Places Trust; Tourism New Zealand; Auckland City Council; and others. Here is the guts of the presentation that I delivered whose purpose was to encourage the different groups to work together as a partnership. It is based in a similar approach that was adopted and implemented in Seattle.

The slide presentation now follows. I have not provided any of the spoken words that go with these rather terse slides, and hope that you find them useful enough as they stand....