Newspaper Article – Mayor to be asked to call meeting on future of festival

Mayor to be asked to call meeting on future of festival.

Greater Hastings intends to ask the Mayor of Hastings, Mr R. V. Giorgi, to call a meeting of representatives of various organisations to discuss the future of the Blossom Festival.

The president of Greater Hastings, Mr H. B. Poppelwell said today his organisation felt that the future of the Blossom Festival was far too important to Hastings as a whole for a decision of this magnitude to be made by Greater Hastings.

“We therefore propose to invite the mayor to call this Meeting to go into ways and means of establishing the Blossom Festival on proper lines, thus ensuring its continuity, he said. “We want the opinions of those vitally interested in the welfare of the city.”

Mr Poppelwell said Greater Hastings was “definitely not considering a mid-week procession” in the future. “It wouldn’t and couldn’t work,” he said, “that idea has been a hardy annual.

“The people are purported to be concerned about undesirable types coming to Hastings for the festival should be ignored because they are not genuinely concerned. What do they do to prevent that behaviour?”

‘Elementary’

Asked why a mid-week procession “wouldn’t work” Mr Poppelwell said it was so elementary that it “astonished” him that anyone suggested it. It was obvious that these people had not given mature thought to it.

“Where would we get the personnel to control it? There are up to 200 volunteers involved in running the procession, and they are a cross-section of the community, with the numbers concerned with the floats you could double that figure.

“It would mean we wouldn’t get the good types to come to Hastings as well as the bad types. After all, the poor types are a very small minority of our visitors.”

He said a Wellington Festival procession was held on a Wednesday a few years ago to help the retailers and afterward the organiser said if they ever held another procession it would be on a Saturday. It did not help the retailers a bit.

Discussing the suggestion that the Railways Department might cut out the excursion trains next year Mr Poppelwell said he did not think anything like this would happen without Greater Hastings being consulted.

Surprised

“I am surprised at the suggestion because we have had no reports that would warrant such drastic action. Our liaison officers on the trains have travelled on them year after year and their reports this year were no different from other years. Some reports were even more favourable about conduct on the trains next year.

“There were, perhaps, isolated instances of rowdyism which were pinpointed by men falling off the trains, but surely that is no reason for stopping excursion trains. The police who traveled on the trains did not report anything untoward and there were no complaints from passengers.”

Mr Poppelwell said Greater Hastings officials were very pleased with the procession this year “because we had grave doubts about being able to achieve such a good one, and we were delighted with the support we received from certain sections of business, in particular the motor trade, which was the backbone of the procession.”

He said ideas for next year must be constructed because Greater Hastings would like the support of major industries in Hastings as well as other vitally interested organisations. These bodies had helped at times and these were the people Greater Hastings felt should make an effort for the district.

He appreciated the difficulties some firms faced, but if that was accepted there would be no festival.

“We think they should be prepared to put themselves out a little once a year for the community in the district where they receive their livelihood.

[Missing text] undertake through various channels to build floats which firms and organisations can sponsor.

“At least 20 floats of a very high standard should be sponsored by industrial and other organisations and constructed on a commercial basis.

“Greater Hastings would provide the floats for firms prepared to sponsor them. In addition, this would provide for various organisations which could make the artificial blossom needed for the floats.

“We can construct a frame-work which would fit over a tractor and that frame could be put in a shed and built into a float. A lot of thought has already been put into the methods to achieve this. Although it would mean considerable organising Greater Hastings is prepared to undertake it.

“It would enable business in other parts of the Dominion to sponsor floats. And what would there be to stop, say accountants or solicitors sponsoring a float?”

The president of the Hastings Retailers Association. Mr S. E. Trott, said he agreed with Mr Poppelwell that it would not be practicable to hold a mid-week procession because of the number of people involved.

He said retailers were delighted with the activities at Civic Square in spite of the adverse weather.

“I thought the proceedings change from usual and were well run”, he said.

“We have some ideas about the Blossom Festival which we will discuss with Greater Hastings.”