[Editor: Our Jan/Feb magazine presents heaps of big ideas for Hawke’s Bay, some quite audacious. But in her column Jess Soutar Barron takes a different path, proposing: “We don’t have to chew off monster mouthfuls to make change. Sometimes it takes a lot of little nibbles.” She offers 20 morsels.] 

Big ideas, blue-sky thinking, outside-the-box, wildest dreams … it’s all too much. I’ll settle for the little things, tiny ideas to get Hawke’s Bay cranking. 

1.     Grow, collectively: Plough up the urban reserves and plant allotments, trade our produce and preserve what’s left over.

2.     Insider cider: Gather wind-fall pipfruit for a community cider press. Everyone gets a quota based on their input, then we all get tiddly on shared scrumpy.

3.     Shout about it: Don’t let the hīkoi be a lone voice, find more things to march about. Make placards. Take a stance on something, anything. Forget Farmers Market meet-ups, let’s congregate at the Clock Tower every week and protest.

4.     Fleece foreigners: Put up a toll booth at Te Mata. Have a tax for tourists wanting to see the gannets. Clip the ticket on our landscapes, our vistas, our iWay, our expressway, our ranges, our coast.

5.     Upsell by-products: Push what’s seen as waste into premium markets. Big nod to the people behind Tī Kōuka Beef making supplements from their cattle hearts. This kind of nose-to-tail thinking makes the most of every bit of our ag’n’hort production. We need to support more of it.

6.     Speaking of which, that money we make from visitors, let’s use it on an innovation fund that’s run by a citizen’s panel. Micro-loans for crazy thinking judged by the people for the people. Socialism with a healthy pinch of capitalism.

7.     And we should have scholarships for people who want to study somewhere interesting. But once they’re done they have to come back and do good for our community. And they must wear “I’m From Hawke’s Bay” tee-shirts every day for three years (or five if they do architecture).

8.     Just generally, everyone should give time to the community. Not volunteering should be frowned upon. Whether it’s at an op-shop or for Big Brother Big Sister, every one of us should find some time to get involved in a community initiative.

9.     And let’s get better with our languages. Te reo obviously. Ko tōku reo tōku ohooho, ko tōku reo tōku māpihi maurea*. But also Italian, Portuguese, Hindi, Pijin, Swahili, Mandarin, Basque. Our aural landscape is made more vibrant by hearing all these and more.

10.  To do that we need to bring back Night School. If every retired teacher and knowledgeable hobbyist offered an evening class at the local high school, and we all turned up and learnt something new, imagine how brainy the Bay would become. Plus, all those kids who missed out because of Covid could come along and get their NCEA-whatever.

11.  Using spaces like schools when they’re not being used for their main purpose is something else we should do more of. Let’s have chamber music in libraries, roller discos in carparks. Let’s do Shakespeare in laneways and have long-lunches down Emerson. 

12.  It should also become the Hawke’s Bay norm to learn people’s names. Nothing makes a place friendlier than knowing your local barista’s first name, or, even better, nickname. 

13.  Why can’t Hawke’s Bay become known as the nice place of New Zealand? We’re a small town no matter how big we feel. Let’s reintroduce small town manners. If we see a mate walking down the street when we’re driving by let’s pull over to say ‘Hi’ … let’s not even pull over, let’s just stop in the middle of the road for a ‘Holla’. Then invite them round for tea.

14.  And when they get there, give them leftovers. We need to get better at eating what’s in the pantry. Our food waste is embarrassing. Bit-by-bit, fridge-by-fridge, household-by-household we need to fix that. 

15.  But we should also eat out properly. Ordering entrees and a ‘main to share’ should illicit the side-eye from fellow diners. If you’re going out, really go out, don’t hold back. Otherwise, when we’re all flush again, that hospo we said we loved but didn’t actually support won’t be there to pour the bubbles.

16.  Same goes for shows. Don’t spend $400 going to see Travis Scott in Auckland, spend $40 going to see whoever-happens-to-be-playing at Paisley Stage, Cabana or Small Halls. You may not be able to nod in agreement with all the sheeple but you will be able to cut your own path towards new discoveries.

17.  We should encourage our own arts practitioners more, and in tangible ways. Artists can’t eat praise. Buy the pottery, buy the quilting, buy the mix tape, buy the macrame banana hammock.

18.  And when we leave Hawke’s Bay, we should make sure everyone knows exactly where we’ve come from. Let’s back the Bay at every opportunity.

19.  Not just back the Bay, but brag about it. Tell everyone how good it is here. Marianne Williamson said it best: “Playing small does not serve the world … there is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.”

20.  Then let’s buy a retro caravan and a vintage station-wagon. Pack in all our ideas: the big ones, the little ones, the barmy ones, the profound ones. Put in products and by-products, artworks, demo tapes, bottles of cider and jars of chutney, and macrame fruit baskets with nice fat price-tags (15% to local charities). Then we’ll do a roadie so we can show off to the rest of New Zealand how awesome Hawke’s Bay really is.

* My language is my awakening, my language is the window to my soul.