Square Deal Community Network
– empowering the community!
- The first community website of its kind in New Zealand.
- A tool for empowering the community.
- Designed for sharing information and discussing issues, with a focus on the non-profit and voluntary sector of the community.
- Access to information about Palmerston North City Council, the councillors and Ward Committees, with full contact details.
- Downloadable documents – Council documents and consultation material, Council sub-committee information, and documents provided by community organisations.
- A place for community groups to inform others about their activities and services, and the issues that concern them.
- Free web pages within the site for all community groups, whether they be single-issue groups, hobby or sports clubs, or community service organisations.
- A forum for airing opinions, asking questions, giving answers, and just generally discussing anything and everything to do with living and working in Palmerston North.
- Completely non-political.
- Announcements feature – where groups can announce forthcoming events and meetings.
- An events calendar, where community events can be posted for all to see.
- This site is completely free to use and carries no advertising of any kind.
- It is a tool provided for the community, by Lynne Pope. I have provided the framework, it is now up to the community to realise it’s potential.
This website is YOUR resource, please make the most of it.
Update
The Square Deal website attracted a lot of attention and as a result I assisted several other communities within both New Zealand and Australia in setting up their own community portals. The Web, however, marches on and over time other sites sprang up. When I was elected to the Palmerston North City Council I found that the Square Deal was increasingly being used by people who wanted to talk to me, in my role as councillor. Since I also had a website for just that purpose the efforts were simply being duplicated. A failure to find someone willing to take over the site led to its closure in late 2005. While not complete, archives can be found on the Internet Wayback Machine.
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