Ōmokoroa Playcentre celebrates 50 years
The threat of rain couldn’t put a damper on our 50th birthday recently. Our Open Day celebration was a huge success with a turnout of around 100 guests.
We were thrilled to have five founding members from 1970 join in the festivities – Marie Firth, Shirley Deane, Ann Bostock, Val Pope and Beatrice Watson. The memories and laughter shared as they perused through old photo albums and learning records displayed in our history showcase made for some delightful moments.
Marie says, “To see how far Ōmokoroa Playcentre has developed from the tiny seed that germinated 51 years ago is staggering.”
The event saw all the usual areas of play set up for the kids to explore and experience, with so many resources that weren’t available at the beginning. Guests were invited to ‘make a memory of Playcentre’ with collage; stamp their thumbprint on a commemorative piece of artwork, and to rediscover artwork they’d contributed to in years gone by that was still on display. The enormous lizard mounted on the ceiling has had tamariki’s handprints added to it for over a decade. Facepainting, delicious home baking, and speeches from our founding member and current presidents offered something for everyone to enjoy. Mickey Weller, one of our four-year-olds who assisted his dad in building our new playhouse, was elated to be able to cut the ribbon, marking it officially ‘open for business’.
A Life Membership award was presented to Beatrice Watson who was the first kindergarten-trained supervisor at our centre in 1970-71 and who guided and facilitated the sessions in those early days. A commemorative gift was also presented to each of the founding members that attended. It’s such a great privilege to be able to honour those who have gone before us and who are still with us half a century later.
Ōmokoroa Playcentre has seen many changes over 50 years. The need for a preschool and a way of socialising their isolated farm-based children was initially identified by Marie Firth back in 1970, and sessions ran twice a week out of Settlers’ Hall with 30 families participating. There was little money and no formal training in dealing with pre-schoolers. Equipment was donated or made by parents and had to be brought in from the Scout Den outside the hall and carried back again for storage at the end of each session.
A dedicated building finally eventuated
in 1989 when the Tauranga children’s library building was purchased for $6,000 and relocated one early August morning to its current site behind Settlers’ Hall. This brought more families along and, by 1990, there were 50 children on the roll. Since then, the property has seen a deck, sandpit, shed, and vege gardens added; the fort/playground was completed in 2013, and a major indoor renovation was completed in 2018. The most recent play projects include the new mud kitchen, pallet maze, nature area and of course, the new rainbow playhouse.
In 2016, our Playcentre also began hosting Space for parents with new babies, and we are currently running our sixth programme on Wednesdays. We are proud to have helped make a village for around 60 local families through Space.
Playcentre Aotearoa provides a free
adult education programme in early childhood training for members, and with more than half of our members currently taking part in this programme, our tamariki are receiving a real quality learning experience.
Recently we came across a comment in our centre’s history records from 1990 stating that ‘we are a friendly group whose members support each other in times of need’. We are so proud to say that hasn’t changed 30 years on, and we still do things like meal trains for new babies, helping each other out with childcare, and providing valuable support when people are going through tough times.
If you haven’t already visited Playcentre, we invite you to come and discover what our village is all about. Your kids will love it – and so will you.