AS I write this I am sitting on a train, Sydney-bound for a course that I am doing for council.
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I sit here looking out the window thinking about the seemingly impossible task of cutting the train tracks through the mountains and building the bridges over what I can only assume were vast ravines, for those who first undertook this task some years past.
Now as I sit in my comfortable seat I am able to use this service without so much as even talking to anybody.
My Opal card is charged on the internet; I swiped as I walked onto the platform and took my seat (in a noise free car). How sweet it is - now.
But it wasn't always like this there has been much work done to get to this point and even some failure along the way.
First the tracks had to be laid, the plan had to be set and the engineers across all issues that arise as they worked their way from Sydney to Newcastle.
There needed to be money, the State Members had to lobby and get the money, for what I am sure some thought was a folly and a farce at the time. Now we would be much less entwined with our state capitol if we didn't have our rail network.
It is a work in progress that remains under maintenance and change and will always be like this.
Which brings me to my point, we are at the moment like the engineers and track workers with the revitalisation of our town centres.
And the one thing that we have most in common with them is we have a plan and that plan should be ever fluid.
To continue to change with trend and be competitive in a global market we need to maintain a certain rigid fluidity.
Now those two are opposing states but what I mean is that our bones must be rigid but our ability to change ready.
Each town’s revitalisation committee is committed to this task and creating a more competitive shire for the future, as are the councillors.
Over the period of the next 12 months you will see changes in our town centres, some subtle, some in your face and others you won’t even know are there.
But they are all being carried out for the improvement of not only our living standards but also to increase and maintain our competitiveness in the ever dynamic global economy for years to come.
And, just like our friends the rail workers back in the day, we stand in front of a seemingly impossible task but we will create town centres that can achieve for the town’s people the same way those rail workers did by hard work, determination and the knowledge that what we are doing is important to the future.