Once upon a time in a land called Waitaki (ok, January 2022 to be precise), a local woman (called Pip Sutton of Sport Waitaki) sent an email to gauge interest in a database of events / activities that happen in the Waitaki. Long story short, last month we launched it. It’s called Waitaki App and we think it’s a game-changer!

Short story, long… Pip’s email said, “At the moment nearly all of you have your own events page going and then there are multi Facebook groups that post things etc.. It is everywhere and difficult to manage for ourselves to ensure there are no clashes but also for people to know what really is going on in the community. I was wondering if we could have a chat about this sometime to discuss options moving forward?”.

Now Pip wasn’t the first person to raise the subject. She was right about the need but people had attempted solutions many times, long before we arrived and after - including us.

Back in November 2019, I started the Waitaki Events Calendar on Facebook after Mel Jones (then Business Development Manager at Tourism Waitaki) and I had chatted about the very same problem - no central community diary - to;

a) know what’s going on, or

b) avoid clashes when planning an event.

That idea was that everyone who was hosting an event on Facebook could co-host with the Waitaki Event Calendar, so that it would become a default directory of everything going on (at least, everything going on in Facebook land). I passed Waitaki Event Calendar to the hands of Tourism Waitaki but neither they, nor we, had budget to widely promote it.

What happened in March 2020? Oh yeah. Covid-19. Lockdowns. Restrictions.

Events? Not so much.

Budget to promote? Not so much.

Tourism in Waitaki? Not so much.

Look, the Waitaki Events Calendar page has quietly sat there, attracted a thousand followers but its never been taken up by community hearts and minds.

Back to Pip’s group… in February 2022, we had our first meeting. Lots of previous attempts were discussed. Suggestions were made but the longest memories in the room swatted most of them away as having already been tried (and failed).

March 2022, we met again. Pip’s email summed it up nicely, “For those that weren’t in the meeting, we discussed a range of things which was great. We have decided that it needs to be independent of anyone in terms of a business, council etc.. That it needs to have a website component of it to be sustainable with the moving times and not part of a fad”.

She shared the app we’d discussed as being a good example of what we might ultimately aspire to have - iAppDesktop (centralapp.nz) - noting that “we have decided that we need to keep it simple at first to make it sustainable and maybe look at adding to it later as things progress”.

April 2022, Pip was incapacitated by Covid and unable to initiate our scheduled online meeting. By May, the group’s interest was elsewhere (although Rebecca Finlay of Business South, Pip and I did manage to have a three-person discussion on it).

I picked up the phone and called the app’s contact / owner, Tony of Wānaka App. Turned out, a license for an Oamaru or Waitaki or North Otago version had already been distributed. However, Tony said he’d contact that person and and see if they were open to him passing me their details. They were. He did. I rang.

Boom. Meet Vicki McLean of Central App and… licence holder of (what’s become) Waitaki App. She would be coming through Oamaru in May and was happy to meet with Pip’s group.

Pip and I met with Vicki. Good yarns. Dan (Lewis, Real Radio) jumped in for the next conversation.

What Pip’s group had already recognised was that we could go small and hope community grew an acorn into an oak, or go big and find a way to fund it. The in-between solutions had never worked. Frankly the small ones hadn’t either.

So if it was to be a go big solution, it needed a sustainable funding model and Vicki had one. Central App has been a resounding success, growing from a one-person operation when Vicki acquired it to now employing a full team of local journalists, admin staff and salespeople.

Things started to look doable. You know, there’s a magic that happens around the table when collective outcome is more important than personal gain. Vicki wanted the app to be locally run and championed, and was keen to find partners. Dan and I were keen to collaborate on a solution that would actually work and sustainably deliver.

Pip’s group had identified that a community diary would be at longer-term risk if it was an add-on to an existing business because the calendar function would necessarily be secondary to the organisation’s core goals.

The Central App provided a business model where a core function of the business is providing that community calendar. It was successfully delivering what we were all looking for - because it was central to its primary purpose of being.

It’s been months in the making and that’s months of hard work and long hours behind the scenes but it’s finally here… and it’s all here. We’ve backed the app to deliver. We have Ashley Smyth on board as our head of news (as everyone has told us, that’s “such a coup” and we think so too). We’re already recruiting for additional admin.

So now it’s up to you and our wider community. Download the app. Tell your mates. Give us your details for your FREE listings; your clubs and groups and of course the ‘What’s On Guide’.

Advertising is what pays the wages and we’ve launched paid for listings that start from just $19 per week. We’re asking businesses to sign up, knowing they’ll have a dedicated local audience and simultaneously be sponsoring community connectivity for all of us.

So, just in time for summer you get to join us in the Land of App. Waitaki App, that is. This is your last best chance for that elusive community diary. We can see its success in Wānaka, Queenstown and Southland. Now’s the time to get on board. Check out our slideshow below for more.

Join the buzz!