It was devastating to miss out on winning the Gigatown competition by 0.2%, especially as this was due to a social media element which Gisborne was completely disadvantaged in due to our smaller population compared to Dunedin (the overall winner). It was even more frustrating to hear that our 'plan for success' was a clear winner with all judges agreeing that it was the strongest proposal. I believe the investment that Chorus and many other companies would have put into our region had the potential for the most radical transformation out of all of the final contenders. The discussions that arose from all the hard work that so many people in the Gisborne community invested in have recently come back into the limelight as a steering group has been formed to action many of the ideas proposed in our original plan, this is extremely exciting as the momentum that was built around the competition bought together large groups of people from different sectors that would not have