Leading from the front issuu

FORMER NAPIER MAYOR
ON MEETING PAT IN THE ‘80S
by alan dick
Pat was a strong supporter, trustee, mentor and friend to
Jim Morunga, an amazingly effective community worker,
and his Jay Em Trust. The trust had a long history of assisting
unemployed and at-risk youth and continued into the
early 1990s to become the longest surviving work trust.
I also knew Pat through my involvement with the
Napier YMCA. Pat was a long-standing board member
and the inspiration behind its youth programmes including
the Tu Tangata awards for achievement and leadership
normally presented annually by Sir Paul Reeves.
Pat was also the inspiration behind Michael’s Place,
the ‘Pub With No Beer’ project, with most of the funding
obtained through Pat’s advocacy. While it ultimately
failed its objective because of the fickleness of teenagers,
it was a noble experiment that ran for a couple of
years.
Then of course the Pilot City Trust, with the Government
declaring Napier the Pilot City. It was a government
interdepartmental social initiative, producing the
Bev Barron State of Napier reports which led the council
to adopt a community development philosophy which
persists today. You will know the rest — the Walks for
Unity, Pilot City Awards and persistence with the notion
that Napier, a city with 55,000 [now 65,000] people is
large enough to exhibit society’s problems but still small
and cohesive enough to find solutions.
Napier is very fortunate to have a visionary like Pat
who charms and influences people with the particular
knack of getting people to think away from the norms,
without creating offence. He has made a lot of sacrifices
along the way, always helping other people but seldom
himself.
Above: Pilot City crew, late ‘70s in the Napier City Council board room, corrupting the halls of power with their goodness; it worked
pretty well until a new mayor came along.
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Napier Pilot City Trust – for a kinder, fairer city