So as not to leave any cause unmentioned, Belinda Walker turns up to our interview with a graphic organiser.

**Belinda Walker - Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit – and busy getting ready for Kinstock.**

Though, to be fair, it is more of a plan for enhancements the Kinloch community has been working on and would like to keep advancing over the next few years – and Walker has been running with a lot of them.

The mother of three and wife to Darren was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Year honours list, recognised for her contribution to Kinloch since returning from overseas to New Zealand nine years ago.

“The whole process made me reflect on what the award was for, because I'm really grateful to the people who took the time to nominate me.

“I didn't realise how big a process it is and there are heaps of people that do really great stuff in Kinloch and Taupō, so I’m super grateful for that.”

Walker attributed the honour inherent in the gong to teamwork.

“It's never one person and my number one team is certainly my family. Darren and our kids Jed, Leroy and Aria all get either co-opted into events or enable me to go to things and that's not easy on our family necessarily.

“And then I have another great team in Kinloch with the Kinloch Families Trust. That's the group I chair currently. And they're brilliant because they're so positive and supportive and realistic.”

She admitted this last trait was important – to assess the practicality or timing of some of her ‘crazy ideas’. (In fact she comes up with a couple of new ones during the interview.)

“With a great team like that, you can do things. Our tagline’s literally ‘happy to help’. We wanted to do things differently, we're not a committee, we make everybody welcome to be part of the process.”

Her involvement began with a Facebook group she set up for mums in the area in 2016 (jokingly tagged ‘no mum left behind’) but as the settlement has grown from 500 or so permanent residents then to the 1200-1400 now, and “probably three to four times that in the summer when holidaymakers are here,” it has broadened its demographic and morphed into the Kinloch Families Trust.

“We thought we want to make this inclusive. Everybody's part of a family, whether you're a grandparent, a caregiver, single, couple, everybody. This is our Kinloch whanau, family.”

With a background in strategic planning, marketing and market research, Walker has been involved in surveying the community about its wants and needs.

“And sometimes the answer is not my answer. But I sit on the Kinloch Representative Group and we need to bring those ideas to people, to the Taupō District Council, to whoever. And that's always been our way.”

Positivity is important to Walker, not just in the ‘no rants’ policy within the Facebook group.

“We've had people go, ‘I want to start a mountain bike group’ so they can use this group to start that process. And another local mum has started a 5km running group who run and go for a swim. How cool is that? And that's the idea, it's not like a committee that does all work, it's ‘we're happy to help and try to change that way of doing things’.”

The Kinloch kindergarten project (a major achievement), Matariki, Easter celebrations for the community, the Kinstock Music Festival, improvements to traffic safety and biking/walking connectivity: the list of events or improvements that Walker has contributed to for the last eight years goes on.

But the family link to the area goes back over four decades to a bach Darren’s family had in Kinloch.

“So we've got this family connection and then in 2016 we moved here as a family and wherever you land, I just believe you need to contribute.”

Her approach, she admitted, was to be “politely persistent.”

“If you're going to turn up and yell at people nothing is going to happen. Our council does the best they can. They're bound by heaps of rules and it’s tough. I've been to so many meetings, and you’ve always got to turn up and present (your ideas). Get along and do it…

“I’m sure people have got sick of me, but I hope I haven't made any enemies in that respect, along the way.”