Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

Sometimes taking a break provides the opportunity to take stock and see things from a slightly different perspective.

This happened to me recently when I took a leave of absence from the Bay of Plenty Regional Council to travel to Cardiff to be with my daughter for the birth of her first child, and circumstances caused me to extend my trip to six weeks in total. I had arranged to stay in touch via email, but there is a limit to what can be done from a distance.

However, seeing things from afar was an interesting experience. Secondly, getting home to my office and its mountains of mail, email, phone messages, agenda papers, records of missed meetings, invitations to events and a jumbled diary, really gave me pause for reflection.

The break has helped highlight for me the huge number of issues that the regional council deals with on a day-to-day basis and the effort our staff put in to get the message across.

The number of council press releases and reports I received via email was impressive and made me wonder about the many people that still have little idea of what the regional council does.

It is not that we aren't trying to inform our community in a clear and simple manner – perhaps lack of interest is more to blame?

The range and importance of the issues being addressed by the regional council is truly impressive – from regional infrastructure and economic development (including fast tracking regional broadband); rehabilitation of the Rotorua lakes and improvement of Rotorua air quality; action on water quality and availability across the region; land use impacts on our environment; growth and transport planning; public transport provision; protecting our natural biodiversity; safeguarding the future of Tauranga harbour through action in surrounding catchments; mangrove removal; disaster recovery and protection of valuable productive land through river protection and drainage schemes – the list goes on and on. Many of the decisions made relate to very big sums of money and how this is funded – and these decisions have far reaching impacts for our communities and their futures.

The amount of work to be done is reflected in the number of meetings and workshops which are held to equip regional councillors with the knowledge to make informed decisions. The massive pile of reading sitting in my office that I need to get up to speed with is a very good reminder how hard we must work to do a really good job for the region. However, rather than being daunting, I find it all very invigorating and I can't wait to get back to work.

The break has reinforced for me how important the work is that needs to be done and how much I love doing it. There are a lot of things I want to achieve and the trick is to juggle priorities. I want to be more strongly connected with our community and maintain strong networks, while balancing this with the mass of reading, meeting preparation and participation which is required as part of the job of councillor. Just as important is maintaining awareness at a national and local level about what is going on and how this impacts on us all going forward.

So, back into it! And in case you are interested, I have another healthy wee grandson.

If you have any views on this or any other issue, please contact me on neesj@xtra.co.nz or ring me on 07 579-5150. Or you can check out my website at www.janenees.co.nz