the town\u2019s infamously breezy conditions<\/a>, but didn\u2019t expect it would have to stand up to a more targeted effort to bring it down.<\/p>\n\u201cWe designed it, to be wind-permeable, with an internal structure and pendants that would blow in the wind. We started putting it together in October, and everybody lent a hand. It was very well received. I think everybody loved it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joanna Baldwin, who manages the Featherston Community Centre, said the collective was an important part of the town\u2019s tight-knit community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re an amazing group, so it\u2019s sad. It\u2019s quite a lot of work they put in, so it\u2019s quite frustrating to see this happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The sustainable Christmas tree in Featherston after it was destroyed. Photo \/Supplied<\/p>\n
Dennison says a couple of days before the felling, the recycled tree suffered some minor damage and empty alcohol cans were found littered around the structure.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think someone\u2019s landed themselves on Santa\u2019s naughty list over this.\u201d <\/p>\n
Dennison said the experience had been disheartening, and having had the wind knocked out of them, the group weren\u2019t sure if they would replace the tree next year. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still a little bit sad at the moment. You don\u2019t really want to be putting it up and finding that it\u2019s been damaged again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wilde said if anyone in the Featherston community knew who was behind the defacement, \u201cit would be great if they could at the minimum get an apology from the culprits\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI don\u2019t know who it was, or who would do that to the community. To me, it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[89,1558,18399,1259,5232,17153,118939,118937,42,11551,78,2845,20829,130,43,5914,8466,118938,50643,131,40,38,41,39,15981,26994,107200],"class_list":["post-190079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-attack","tag-been","tag-christmas","tag-community","tag-create","tag-damaged","tag-disheartened","tag-featherston","tag-headlines","tag-hours","tag-in","tag-leaving","tag-locals","tag-more","tag-news","tag-regional","tag-second","tag-senseless","tag-smashed","tag-than","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-tree","tag-vandal","tag-vandals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}