Blenheim adds more sports to popular event

Marlborough is on track to host one of the biggest South Island Masters Games on record, with opening-day registrations up 400 per cent on average.

The 2021 event will be the 20th year of the games and will be held over two weekends in October.

Research conducted after the 2018 event in Timaru showed an economic benefit to the region of $1.6 million and included an additional 2655 bed nights and $58,000 distributed to local sports clubs.

South Island Masters Games events director Simon Carter said Marlborough had jumped at the chance to host the games, and introduced or brought back about 10 new sports, including futsal, beach volleyball and indoor cricket. ‘‘The way the Masters Games is set up, clubs or associations in those regions take on the opportunity to organise a competition,’’ he said.

‘‘The beauty of that is . . . 100 per cent of every fee goes back into the sport. So they can choose to spend on customer experience at the Masters Games, or some choose to make repairs or upgrades of the facilities, or coaching and development.’’

When registrations opened in early May, they were up 400 per cent year-on-year, despite 2020 being a record year. Carter said entries were now up about 35 per cent on the same time last year.

‘‘We were absolutely blown away by the uptake. I think a lot of that is a testament to the geographic location of Marlborough. There are so many other things you can do when you are in the region,’’ he said.

Marlborough Football general manager Andrea Smith-scott said they had decided to introduce futsal into the games as it was already popular in the region.

She said Carter had told her there had been interest for futsal previously, so they thought they would give it a go.

‘‘[Registrations] have really just started, but we’ve had a few inquiries from people in Nelson, Timaru and Christchurch.’’

She said the opportunity to host the games was something every sport should be stoked about. ‘‘It is a real comfort to know there is some more funding coming in this year,’’ she said.

Marlborough Volleyball committee member Steve Beaumont said beach volleyball would complement the indoor tournament.

‘‘It’s early days yet, we’re still waiting for entries to roll in, but with the upgrade to Lansdowne Park a couple of years ago, Marlborough Volleyball had a couple of basic beach courts, but the council came to us with the offer of four new courts,’’ he said.

‘‘We thought, well if we’re going to run indoor, as a possible way to get people to hang around an extra day in town, we’ll offer a day of beach volleyball as well, seeing as we have the facility there.’’

Blenheim Indoor Stadium manager Dorothy Fitzpatrick said they had chosen to host multiple sports, including indoor netball, indoor cricket, ten-pin bowling and table tennis as they had the facilities to do so.

‘‘We’re not sure how big it’s going to be or anything like that yet, but we’ve got a lot to offer,’’ she said. ‘‘If the entries come it will be very busy. There are many sports we have on offer just at our centre.’’

Bella Vista Motel Blenheim owner Julie Berriman said she had already noticed a spike in bookings for the period. ‘‘October is usually quite a busy time for us anyway, so it’s going to be good,’’ she said.

‘‘It’s brilliant. The more, the merrier.’’ Early-bird registrations are open until June 20. Late entries close on September 26. A regional discount of $10 is being offered to Marlburians until June 20, using discount code SOUNDS.

The top of the south is extending its help and support to farmers in South Canterbury as the region continues to assess damage across flood-ravaged farms.

Federated Farmers Mid-canterbury president David Clark said there had been plenty of offers of help from around the South Island, including the top of the south wine region in the wake of the recent devastating and widespread flooding.

‘‘We’ve had some fantastic offers of [used] posts out of vineyards in the Nelsonmarlborough area . . . and that’s a tremendous help for farmers as they start to construct fencing again.’’

He said South Islanders were also volunteering to repair and pull debris off fences.

While offers of labour and supplies were being provided, it was essential everything was co-ordinated to ensure ‘‘the right assistance gets to the right farmers, but so we also honour and respect the donations that are being offered’’.

New Zealand Winegrowers sustainability general manager Edwin Massey said the wine industry was keen to help, and repurposing old vineyard posts was a possible solution.

He said during mechanical harvesting, the treated pine vineyard posts often broke, resulting in a 3 per cent breakage rate on average. Across Marlborough’s vineyards of approximately 30,000 hectares ‘‘there’s a large number of posts broken each year’’.

While many companies had their own schemes to recycle the posts, ‘‘there’s a