The first committee meetings were held on Monday night. Items up for discussion included the Wellington Destination Brand implementation and the master plans for both Kennard and Cameron parks.

The destination brand for Wellington aims to promote the benefits of living, working or visiting in the town. Council has spent $3380 designing new imagery, including a logo which can be used across a range of formats.

As well as the 40 stakeholders who were consulted in relation to the brand – the vast majority of whom supported the ‘start your adventure’ slogan –  council also received more than 70 responses from the public.

Council manager economic development and marketing Josie Howard said much of the feedback called for the town’s brand to remain the same. There was a strong connection to the landscape, Ms Howard said.

However, she said there were also residents who supported council’s plan to ‘move forward’ with positive marketing activity and a fresh brand.

Mayor Ben Shields threw his support behind the bright new logo design. 

“I just want to go one the record about how pleased I am it cost very, very little to design this logo. I won’t mention any other logos, I’ll just leave it at that,” he said.

Cr David Grant agreed.

“I think it’s a really good thing,” he said. “It gives us our identity, is very sympathetic to the existing logo, and it is really modernised.”

The heads of the committees were also elected.

First-time councillor Stephen Lawrence will chair the Planning Development and Environment Committee, as well as the Infrastructure, Community and Recreation Committee. Councillor Greg Mohr will lead the Economic Development, Business and Corporate Committee.

Cr Lawrence said he was humbled to be elected unopposed to the positions. The councillor said he put his hand up to be chairperson as he wanted to be heavily involved with council.

Cr Mohr said he had wanted to lead a committee during his last term on council but missed out. This time he was elected unopposed.