Hallmarks of community threatened
Community halls are part of the glue that binds rural communities and keeps connections alive, but many are under threat. Nina Hindmarsh reports.
It’s a mid-winter Wednesday morning, just another playgroup day. Children shriek on bikes and mothers chatter on the verandah over freshly-brewed coffee at the Onekaka Hall in Golden Bay.
Since 1977 the playgroup has been meeting at the hall in the small rural community. Several generations have gone through the old wooden doors for the weekly event.
When Chloe Zeewoldt moved to the neighbourhood with her husband and first son nearly five years ago from Perth, she was apprehensive about living in such a small town. She’d never lived anywhere where the nearest neighbour could be a kilometre away or more.
The isolation and lack of things to do worried her somewhat. She grew up in Nelson before moving to Australia.
But she soon discovered the benefits of being a part of a closeknit community. People actually looked out for one another, and it quickly became her favourite thing about living rurally.
‘‘It turns out I don’t feel isolated at all, because everyone seems to be more connected. I actually feel more connected than any other place I’ve lived.’’
She sees the Onekaka Hall as a physical representation of this newfound sense of connectedness. Her wedding was also held there.
‘‘The hall feels like ours, like our place. It feels like everyone can come here, like it belongs to everyone, and everyone takes pride in it and wants to keep it going and keep it alive … just living rurally … I don’t know what I would do without it.’’
The hall was originally built in Rockville in 1911 by the Education Board and was shifted to Onekaka as the community grew. Today it’s one of Golden Bay’s most well-used halls, by both the immediate neighbourhood and wider community.
But community and town halls all around the country are facing uncertain futures, as owners are now required to bring them up to 34 per cent of the new building standard, or face demolition.
Many have been knocked down or decommissioned in the last five years, including at least 10 community halls so far in Horowhenua, Matamata Piako, Western Bay of Plenty and Masterton. It’s sparked a complex and emotionally-charged debate around the trade-offs between heritage, building standards, and public funds.
The Rangiteki District Council has just called for tenders on the new multi-purpose centre in Bulls followed by two other towns. They will replace the aging halls, combining them with libraries and information centres to help minimise costs by making use of the same staff.
In Golden Bay, the new multimillion-dollar recreation centre has been built near Takaka and comes with the slogan, ‘‘One Place For All’’, casting a great big shadow over the viability of two community halls in the area.
For years the Tasman District Council has banked on their sale to help pay for the new facility, but came under fire from the community when its plans were revealed several years ago, before going quiet on the matter.
But there’s an argument that our halls represent something bigger than a building to be sold off, and questions are being asked, like what will happen to the social fabric of rural communities when they’re all gone?
Psychologists have long since known that humans are a social species that rely on secure social surroundings and connection with others to survive and thrive, and community halls are described as the ‘‘glue’’ that binds rural communities together.
They curb social isolation by bringing people together for a common cause, and in many ways they also represent New Zealand’s social history as they tell the stories of those who planned them, built them and played in them.
But community halls are not just structures reflecting a long-lost past. In Golden Bay, some have undergone a renaissance in recent years as communities re-embrace them.
Today, they hold circuit classes and zumba, ballet and bachata, yoga and table tennis, indoor bowls, book fairs and combined garage sales. Some say the revival of community halls is due to people watching less television. Others say they’re just making an effort these days to connect and be more involved.
Whatever the reason, there’s no doubt they’re as alive and kicking as ever. For example, in the small settlement of Rockville, past Collingwood, the popular Bay Fitness classes run every day of the week, sometimes twice-daily. The indoor bowls club at the Collingwood Memorial Hall has seen a surge in popularity and is up to 20 members, as has the table tennis club at the Kotinga Hall.
Children and adults wanting to dance are spoilt for choice these days with ballet, latin, folk, ecstatic and tap dance, all spread out across different halls in the bay.
National president of Rural Women Fiona Gower says community halls are the focal hub of a community, and they’re ‘‘vital’’ to the wellbeing of its people.
‘‘Face-to-face meetings are getting more and more important, especially with everything online these days,’’ she says.
We need those places to meet that are easy and non-threatening, and where people can all feel a part of something valuable.
Buried in the Tasman District Council’s 2018-2028 Long-Term Plan, it’s revealed there will be a strategic review of all 18 councilowned community and town halls in the district. This is part of council’s wider agenda around asset management, and to relieve itself of those that are problematic and expensive to maintain.
In Golden Bay, the Pohara and Kotinga Halls will be targeted.
The ex-Golden Bay Cement Company exchanged the 300 person capacity Pohara Hall with the council in the 80s, but later cut the capacity to 50 citing earthquake risks, before making big plans to sell it. But the sale never eventuated because of reserve land legalities.
To top it off, the Pohara Hall has struggled over the years to find a dedicated committee to run it and remains the only hall in Golden Bay that council has to take bookings for.
The Kotinga Hall, five kilometres from Takaka, is next on the council’s list because of its location being the closest hall to new rec centre.
The former schoolhouse was built in the first part of the 20th century, replacing the Long Plain School across the road.
But hall committee chair Colin Langford says council can’t just sell their hall because the community is using it, sometimes up to six days a week.
He recalls when news appeared ‘‘out of the blue’’ several years ago that the hall would be closed and sold to make money for the new recreation facility. ‘‘There had been no consultation about it. It just came ‘bang’ – like that.’’
The community was alarmed and upset. They made a lot of noise, and Langford said they managed to stave off any threat. But he accepts the upcoming review will see another reckoning for the hall, and admits old buildings like Kotinga are becoming difficult to maintain, and find dedicated volunteers to run them.
‘‘There also seems to be less and less community-minded people, and so the burden of these sort of facilities falls on a few,’’ he says.
Carolyn McLellan, member of the Bainham Hall committee, feels the deal they get from the council is ‘‘outstanding’’.
‘‘We’ve had earthquake strengthening done, they check the fire, OPUS have been recently to do a property inspection, so from that perspective I think they are brilliant. They give so much each year ... as long as no one tries to take it away from us – then they’d be in for a fight.’’
But for years it’s been ‘‘hanging over the community’’ that one or more halls will close, because of the new rec centre.
‘‘That will not go down well. If TDC has their heads screwed on, they won’t do anything. These halls serve a purpose the rec centre never will. There’s a neutrality, everyone feels like it’s their place.’’
The council’s senior communications advisor Chris Choat has promised an extensive consultation process be undertaken before any decisions are made about the halls, and says the council has no intention of closing them all.
He says the council is under no illusions about the ‘‘incredible sentimental and emotional value’’ the halls have to individual communities and their role in connectedness. But some of the buildings are aging, and questions have to be asked, like can we afford to keep maintaining this, and how much use is it getting?
In 2015, when the new recreation centre had been dropped from the annual plan, it received a fair amount of local pressure to have it reinstated. He said it was made clear the community would need to ‘‘think really hard’’ about how many facilities it could support.
‘‘When talking about building that new rec centre facility, we asked for a business case, and some of the statements [by the community] were made that they understood they would have to give up one or two [halls].’’
But local historian and author Robin Robilliard says there will be a ‘‘huge outcry’’ by Golden Bay people if there’s any threat to the halls.
‘‘I don’t think the powers that be in Richmond [the council] have any idea of the risk they’re taking if they try and take away any of the halls.’’
Robilliard, who moved to a mountainous Golden Bay sheep farm in the 50s, knows only too well how vital halls are. They were the ‘‘social place to be’’, without burdening other people by being in thier homes. People would meet once or twice-weekly for cards night, dances or other social gatherings.
But once television came along, she said halls gradually began to empty. She’s delighted to see them being re-embraced again, being the ‘‘pulse of the community’.
Much to the relief of some, not all halls in Golden Bay will be in the council’s firing line.
Some have retained their independence and are supported by dedicated committees who run them, including those in Puramahoi, East Takaka, Upper Takaka and Motupipi.
Like Kotinga, the Puramahoi Hall in central Golden Bay has seen a surge in popularity and is being used most days a week.
In Upper Takaka, at the base of the Takaka Hill, the whole neighbourhood gets together for the popular social evening on Fridays at the hall, and once a month for a shared dinner.
Upper Takaka was once a vibrant community, but resident Nigel Harwood recalls how the community was ‘‘decimated’’ within 10 years from 1987, when the school closed and then the Rat Trap Hotel burnt down. He says it was a ‘‘very hard time for the community’’, which became just another quiet place people drove through on their way over the Takaka Hill.
Then a group of people from the neighbourhood decided to set up a country club and bar in the hall.
‘I remember my father saying it had been the first time in eight months he had caught up with his neighbours.’’
In East Takaka, the dedicated committee who run the independent hall have restored the 1902 former schoolhouse, all under heritage guidance.
Committee chair Nancy Ward says the hall has united the neighbourhood.
‘‘I just think it’s our place, it has made the community. There’s a place for them all, and they still hold a place within the community.’’
As a child, Nerissa Cottle’s mother Jennie took her to playgroup in Onekaka and years later her funeral was held there.
Cottle now co-ordinates the weekly event, since moving back to Golden Bay six years ago to raise a young family.
The hall holds huge significance for her. It’s the place where connection starts as a child, and carries on throughout a lifetime.
‘‘There’s kids who came here to playgroup and are now having their 21st birthdays here, and who knows? They might even have their weddings, or their parents funerals here.’’
She says there’s not many meeting places left.
‘‘Anyone can use them – young people, artists, playgroups, homeschool groups, Christian groups ... It’s just having those spaces, and for it not to be expensive.’’