Dream the Impossible Dreams

The Rotary Club of Wellington offered to Wellington a time and place to ‘’Dream the Impossible Dreams’’.
 
On Tuesday 1 August 2017, 200 people crammed into the foyer of the St James Theatre for the 2017 Rotary Forum. They heard twelve of the most inspiring speakers in the country, who shared their ‘impossible dreams’ for Wellington.
A flagship community service initiative for the Club is an annual Rotary Forum, now in its sixth year. The Forum brings together thinkers and opinion leaders across the community, local and central government, young and old, the experts and the curious. The point of the Forum is to share and develop the thinking and agenda on an important issue for Wellington City, Wellington Region and New Zealand as a whole. The Club is ideally placed in the capital city, with members who are influential across and within the community. 
 
 
The twelve speakers this year included the Deputy Prime Minister, the Chair of the Local Government Commission, a prominent Maori leader, an urban design champion, the leader of an innovation hub, the producer of TEDx Wellington, a futurist, the chair of the economic development agency, the founder of ‘’Who did you help today?’’, a young African designer, and two honorary members of the Club – the local Member of Parliament, and the Anglican Bishop of Wellington. Another twelve people from the floor were selected to set out their ‘’one minute dream’’.
 
The provocation for the Forum was: “What would it take for Wellington, the city and region to be the best in the world?” Deutsche Bank recently named Wellington as the most liveable city in the world. That is but one of many international surveys, and Wellington still has some big challenges to overcome.
 
Deputy Prime Minister Paula Bennett described herself as an Aucklander, who sleeps in Wellington. Wellington has a thriving economy, which has grown by 21% since 2011. It has the fastest rate of new tech businesses and the highest concentration of web and digital businesses in New Zealand. Minister Bennett said there are nearly 20,000 public servants living in Wellington who are “very clever”. She suggested we get them thinking about the challenges Wellington faces, for example “In our home city we will eradicate homelessness”.  Wellington could be the first city to have nobody on the unemployment benefit.
 
Coffee, craft beer and chocolate are some of the things that make Wellington special now, according to experts such a Lonely Planet.
 
However a more inspiring set of themes and visions came from the speakers  - a different list of dreams, different words that started with C:
 
  • courageous action
  • caring
  • conviviality
  • celebrating biculturalism
  • creativity
  • communicating confidence
  • capturing public servants
  • children are our future
 
Courageous Action
  • Take the ideas and actually do things
  • A city where the best ideas flourish
  • We collaborate to achieve the dream
  • “This is a city of action, the world headquarters of the verb”
 
Caring
  • Socially just - designed for the most vulnerable
  • All people can navigate the city - socially, economically, physically
  • Wellington is safe - for children, pedestrians and cyclists
  • “Wellington is the opposite of loneliness”
 
Conviviality
  • People focused, warm, welcoming – for - new arrivals, migrants, tourists
  • We celebrate the weather - an umbrella for the stadium
  • A hairy city, with more greenery
  • “We each help someone else everyday”
 
Celebrating Biculturalism
  • Visible use of Maori culture, at the airport and around the city
  • School children are now culturally competent, but let’s accelerate the change
  • “We could celebrate the founding of Wellington by Maori, not by the English settlers as recently as 1840”
 
Creativity
  • Asking not what’s new but what’s best
  • Both having and using creative ideas
  • Curiosity - think in terms of the “interobang” a question mark and an exclamation mark
  • Wellington as a technology platform
  • “The elite of this century will be those who can unlearn what they know, and then learn again”
 
Communicating Confidence
  • Wellington is the hinge around which New Zealand swings
  • communicate what we do well, as the world doesn’t always know
  • “Wellington meantime”, recognising that we are first in the world to each new day
  • Confident but careful - get the money right; don’t stuff up
 
Capture the public sector
  • Use the 20,000 public servants in Wellington, the 2,000 policy people; capture their problem solving ability, social consciences and their intellect’
  •  Ask the State Services Commissioner to lend 10% of his best and brightest to help think about the future of Wellington
 
Children are our future
  • Building the Wellington we want for our children and mokopuna
  • So they want to live here, and work here, and for their children to do the same
  • “Children need whimsy; they need art and nature and safe access all over our city”
  • We need children are involved in designing the future of Wellington
 
 
Since the Forum, the Club has contacted the 200 people who attended the Forum to share the dreams. For the first time, the Club has offered to facilitate the formation of some collaborative projects to implement some of the “Impossible Dreams'. The planning is already underway for the seventh Rotary Forum in Wellington in 2018