Sport Manawatu lead the charge securing longer term sports events

Sport Manawatu want to see secondary school sports events returning to the region, and are prepared to put their money where their mouth is.

The Sport Manawatu board has agreed to underwrite three year contracts for secondary school sports event organisers to ensure they return to the region.

The success of the recent secondary school touch championships highlighted the importance of securing these events in the long term, says Sport Manawatu chief executive Andrea Durie.
“These events provide economic benefit to our region and we have all the right facilities here, what we don’t want is for event organisers to start looking elsewhere because they can’t get funding here,” says Durie.

Sport Manawatu have started discussions with national sport organisations who may be interested in bringing their events to the region annually, including touch and volleyball.
“The impact of these events is clear when you consider the touch championships, which is one of the smaller events; brought 1000 people to stay around four nights in our region, let alone the 600 plus students who come to ‘student city’ and may be more inclined to return to one of our tertiary institutions.”
Durie adds securing these events will be easier if they can obtain Council support through the LTCCP (long term council community plan) review process in early 2009. Submissions will be made at that time.