Rotary Forum has a ques­tion to ask.

We have a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty: Welling­ton is what we make it and you can be part of shap­ing it.

Now in its sec­ond suc­cess­ful year, this high­ly top­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty forum asks; what kind of city and region do we want? How should com­mu­ni­ty views be expressed in local gov­ern­ment? What are the ini­tia­tives by busi­ness and com­mu­ni­ties that will help Welling­ton become the place we want to live and work in? What can you do to influ­ence it?

This is your chance to hear a top line up of speak­ers and, just as impor­tant­ly, to make your own point with a ques­tion or two.

But inter­est­ing­ly enough, if you’d like to go along, it’s on a work day, AND it’ll cost you $55. So if you’re not in a flex­i­ble job, and if you can’t spare a week’s gro­cery mon­ey, then no shap­ing the city for you! Appar­ent­ly extra funds raised will go to St John’s Ambu­lance which is a good cause, but low­er­ing the price or hav­ing stag­gered pric­ing in order to ensure a more diverse rep­re­sen­ta­tion would be a much bet­ter idea, we think

I think it could be an inter­est­ing day (although I sus­pect it might be frus­trat­ing as hell) but I have to work. So in lieu of a lengthy dis­cus­sion about the actu­al issues being raised on the day, here’s the way the trite ‘ista con­ver­sa­tion about it went. 

A: (men­tion­ing it) Every sin­gle thing about this makes me recoil

B: (won’t be going) but I sug­gest that this is like­ly to be a fair­ly influ­en­tial gath­er­ing in terms of set­ting opin­ion in a cer­tain sec­tor of soci­ety — it would be good to steer the con­sen­sus the right way.

Me: It’s $55 to go along. That right there is a clear sign that our com­mu­ni­ty is not for every­one to enjoy

C: Even I am not white enough or male enough for that crowd.

D: Much the same way Travis Bick­le longed for a “real rain” to come and “wash all this scum off the streets”.. those rotary guys real­ly want an earth­quake too.

A:  I can’t do it because [redact­ed] but I’d real­ly like some­one to push back on that ‘we’ in the title.

E: rotary is weird — there is the whole elit­ist white guy thing — but then they do loads of char­i­ty work

D: Yeah, they’re noth­ing if not aware of their own hege­mon­ic pow­er struc­tures.