And while I have not come to any clear path, I have come to the opinion that our community has a bright and vibrant future.

To be honest I have never wavered from this belief.

Probably because this community, in many ways, has my children’s future etched in its success, as my children are being raised in this community with the strengths, passions, short comings, and opportunities of this community being their platform from which they will step to their own path.

I have a very fortunate position in this community, for I get to talk with a wide and varied range of people who live and work in our shire.

I get to hear a vast array of opinions, beliefs and ideas about and for our community.

And while I do not agree with some of them, or for that matter many of them, at the end of each and every conversation I am left with one common feeling, and that is of hope.

Because regardless of what the ideas, passions and beliefs are that people share with me for our shire, and whether I agree with them or not, they are always, always from one shared desire.

That one shared desire is for a strong, successful, community – one that has opportunity for all, while holding true to our ideals of a united community embedded in our rural heritage, while embracing the new challenges.

So as I reflect on my community and the challenges that we all now face, I am hopeful.

Hopeful that as we all have our conversations and we share our opinions, ideas and dreams for our shared community, that we all find, in amongst the wide and varied views and ideas that will flow into the public discourse, a moment of clarity.

A moment to see that all others who have an impassioned view that is different from our own have come to that belief from the very same place that we have derived our own.

That is: a want and a belief for the success of our community and a need for its vibrant and bright future.