Waiau sports clubs on the mend
‘‘We'll be back on it by the end of the year’’
The sports clubs in Waiau were wobbled by the November earthquake, not knocked down.
The volunteers of the country clubs that suffered setbacks all uttered a similar phrase; ‘‘still usable’’ – damaged but good enough to keep the games going.
The towns bowling, golf, netball, rugby and tennis clubs all suffered varying degrees of damage but found ways to continue to operate.
The Waiau netball and tennis courts had only been resurfaced in February 2016 after several years spent raising the $60,000 for the Flexipave surface.
The courts were then damaged during the earthquake.
‘‘While not unusable, they are badly cracked,’’ Hurunui Netball Centre president Catherine Ferguson said.
‘‘The weather only makes that worse, with rain and frost getting in there to widen the cracks, and eventually they will become unusable.
‘‘However, we have secured the funding, through a number of sources, to get the courts resurfaced next year – hopefully in time for the new netball season.’’
Waiau
netball and tennis club’s president Leon McKay said the work on the courts resurfacing would be underway by mid-January at the latest.
In the meantime, the tennis club was making do with the odd zig-zag ball.
‘‘The courts are not too bad to play on, there are just a few cracks that sometimes send the ball in the opposite direction, but it’s still playable,’’ McKay said.
‘‘But the longer we leave it, the worse it will get, so to have secured the funding and have the Flexipave guys due back at the end of the year to fix it is great.’’
The Waiau Bowling Club is a step ahead, with their resurfacing of the badly damaged green almost complete.
The green sank by 40 millimetres and one wall of the building was blown out in the quake.
Club stalwart Ian Pettigrew said the club received funding for a new green and had sprayed it off, planed it and seeded it.
‘‘We’ll be back on it by the end of the year,’’ Pettigrew, a club member for 40 years, said.
While watching the grass grow, the club’s 15 members had been taken in by neighbouring bowling clubs for the start of the season for their matches and tournaments.
As for their building that was initially red stickered, it had been rectified when the damaged western wall was replaced to make it safe and operational again only to then be advised the eastern wall needed the same treatment.
Pettigrew said they were now waiting on the engineer’s report for the second insurance claim to be sorted out.
The Amuri Golf Club’s building was damaged but President Angus Galletly said it remained in a usable state with a few areas sectioned off.
The whitestone chimney had been written off and the interior suffered damage from a burst hot water cylinder that leaked through the building. Galletly said they have settled their insurance claim and are now planning the repairs, which was a ‘‘positive situation to be in’’.
The nine-hole course with just the one bunker had only a few minor patches of liquefaction to clean up. Galletly said they were lucky to only have such a small clean up as 1km away his brother’s dairy farm was hit hard with liquefaction.
The Waiau Rugby Club suffered some minor damage to the clubrooms which has been repaired, with the Hurunui and Glenmark rugby Club’s utilising the grounds during the season.