Popular Summer 5km Series Set To Go – Kāpiti and Coast Independent

Have fun, improve your fitness and times from race to race and drag a friend along as well. Bryn Kempthorne, President Kapiti Running & Tri Club

Eight race series starts tonight at Waikanae

By Roger Childs and Bryn Kempthorne

The first of the Kapiti Running and Tri Club summer 5km events starts in Waikanae on Monday December 1. Entries will be taken in the garden bar at the Waikanae Hotel from 5.45 pm. It’s $5 to enter ($10 max for a family), with the walkers starting at 6.15 and the runners at 6.30.

As usual there will be spot prizes, including vouchers provided by the hotel. Other local sponsors for the series include Stirling Sports and Boundary Tap and Kitchen.

Open to all ages and levels of fitness

The emphasis in the series is on encouraging anyone who can walk or run 5km to “have a go”. So these races cater for everyone from social runners and walkers to top athletes.

It is also a way for participants to improve their fitness and measure their progress during the series. The 5kms are also ideal preparation for the Paekakariki Road Races and Kapiti Women’s Triathlon early next year.

Spot prizes are drawn immediately after each race with New Balance running shoes to be won.

After four events in Waikanae, the focus shifts to Raumati Beach in February and early March.

Organised by the Kapiti Running & Tri Club

Contact: Bryn Kempthorne: 04 298 8246; 027 445 4625

email: b.a.kempthorne@xtra.co.nz

For more information refer to www.sportsground.co.nz/kapitirunningandtriclub

Return to Home Page

STORY OF THE WEEK

Kāpiti Coast councillors have toured of one of Aotearoa's unique buildings, the heritage - listed Rotunda at the former Otaki Health Camp, the country’s first.

Jeremy Smith reports that the 105-year-old, eight-sided rotunda predates the Health Camp.

It wasn't actually built in Otaki, but was one of two built in Rotorua in 1915 as part of a military hospital, on the site of Rotorua’s present public hospital.

Later they were taken to Otaki for the opening of the health camp in 1931.

Full story in the main column (December 19).

100 Years Ago — and the Maori Long March begins

Māori politics was dominated by the influential MPs (and sometime Cabinet ministers) Māui Pōmare ( Waitara statue photo above) and Apirana Ngata.

The 1920's also saw the rise of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana’s religious movement, and the emergence of Te Puea Hērangi in Waikato.

Ngata worked hard to foster Māori scholarship and education and preserve traditional arts and culture.

He convinced the government to establish a Board of Maori Ethnological Research (1923), a Maori Purposes Fund Control Board (1924) and a School of Maori Arts and Crafts in Rotorua (1927).

The Reform government also took the first, tentative steps towards settling longstanding Māori grievances.

Agreements with Te Arawa in 1922 and Ngāti Tūwharetoa in 1926 recognised their respective rights over the Rotorua lakes and Lake Taupō, and led to the establishment of trust boards with some government funding.

Commissions of inquiry which examined Ngāi Tahu grievances (1920–21) and the Waikato and Taranaki confiscations (1926–27) recommended that modest compensation be paid.