Our guest speaker at our most recent meeting was Mike Bongiovanni from The Pakuranga United Rugby Club. While already a successful club with large numbers of playing members Mike as C.E of the club also acknowledged that the club needs to adapt to continue to be successful.
That adaptation involves a very major facility development and they are currently completing phase 2 (detailed design) of making the Howick Pakuranga Community Sports Centre a reality.
This has involved validating the local need for such a facility and Mike explained how the demand for flexible use court space for such activities as badminton, table tennis, basketball, pickleball and more, in our community far outstrips the availability of such space. The plan is for nearly 6,000 sq. meters of indoor flexible use space
Stage 3 is the construction stage but in-between the dream and the reality comes a significant fundraising stage. The PURC team has an application lodged with Auckland Council via the Sports & Recreation Facilities Investment Fund for the seed funding for this project. As part of the process, they are sharing the vision with influential local groups to build awareness and momentum for the project.