‘‘I guess it was a given that I will move away from the district as soon as I finish school, so I saw the youth council as an opportunity to do something positive at a local level before I leave.
‘‘I want to be involved in putting things in place to make Gore a bit more youthfriendly,'' he said.
Dan said his real passions were politics and public speaking.
‘‘I'm involved on the executive of a national youth movement called Youth Organised and United (You).
‘‘We just returned from a conference in Wellington two weeks ago, where we started to formulate some policies and decided to create a website (www.nzyou.org.nz).
‘‘Basically we're a national lobby group on behalf of young people. We want to be the youth equivalent of Grey Power,'' Dan said.
His plans for next year probably involve going to Wellington to study law and political science at Victoria University, he said.
‘‘Before I go though, I want to see the youth council in Gore functioning well and achieving something positive for the young people of the community.
‘‘If that can be my legacy for the Gore youth council, I'll be happy.''
He said it was a time of real learning for himself and the other members of the council. ‘‘At the moment, everything is new to everyone on the council.
‘‘We're the ones setting the pathways for the future - it's on our shoulders.
‘‘If we don't get it right there's a real danger of people seeing the youth council as just mere tokenism,'' Dan said.
He said he wanted this council to set some tangible goals to be achieved this year.
‘‘I want us to lift our profile and credibility in the community, so people know and understand what we are trying to achieve.
‘‘I would like the council to take on some tasks that are achievable in this calendar year.
‘‘If we don't achieve that, I would see it as a failure on our part.''
Dan said the most encouraging thing for him was the number of young people who understood what the youth council was doing and wanted to discuss it with him.
‘‘They read about youth council in the paper and come up to me at school and want to chat about the things we are discussing.
‘‘That's a real positive for the future of this group,'' he said.
