We send a MASSIVE thank you to the team responsible for building our new school basketball court!

Our staff and students are super excited about the new basketball court that has just been built for our school.  This is a huge improvement on the older,  small existing area we had for our basketball hoops and will now mean we have a whole court for our children both at school and in the community to use and to play an actual game on.

According to the New Zealand Secondary School Sports Council (NZSSSC) figures just released, basketball is now the third largest sport in New Zealand secondary schools, overtaking football since 2016. Should the trend continue, basketball will become the number one New Zealand secondary schools sport by the year 2020.  We have noticed over the last year a growing number of children wanting to use the basketball hoops during breaks but not being able to play a game as there was just the one double-sided backboard for them to use.

We have had aspirations for some time to build a new, full-sized court but when our Home and School committee started to get quotes, we quickly realised that the costs involved far exceeded anything we could budget for.  

In came Nathan Pomare and Jessica Hooper from KNJ Concrete.  After chatting with Rachel Rolton from our Home and School committee, Jess and Nathan came to visit the site and discuss what we could achieve.  Jess then went away and pulled together a quote that was now extremely affordable for us given how many local suppliers had donated their time and/or materials.  This saved our school thousands of dollars and meant that something we never could have afforded to do, was now possible. Our Home and School committee then quickly supported this initiative and have donated the funds needed to pay for this - making it a reality.  We are such a lucky school!

I want to acknowledge and wholeheartedly thank the following amazing local business owners, several of them parents of children at our school, who have made this project a reality....

Nathan & Jessica from KNJ Concrete https://knjconcrete.co.nz/

Donated all concrete prep and concrete placing

Warwick Tuffnell at Tuffnell Drainage - http://tuffnelldrainage.co.nz/

Donated labour and equipment to dig out new court area and compact AP40

Sandy Shirtcliff at Ellesmere Excavation and Aggregate - http://ellesmereexcavationandaggregate.co.nz/

Donated the AP40 basecourse

Buildlink Selwyn  http://www.buildlinkselwyn.co.nz/

Heavily reduced cost of material supplies 

Ellesmere Transport

Heavily reduced cost for concrete

Supacut - http://www.supacut.co.nz/

Donated labour and equipment to cut the concrete

Ryan Scott Metalworks - scott_metalworks@yahoo.co.nz

Heavily reduced cost for engineering the new basketball poles, backboards

We thank the businesses above for your generosity in supporting this project and encourage you all to support our local businesses in return.

Finally - another big thanks to Rachel and Jess who were the driving force behind this project. They met with the contractors, pulled together the quote, organised the work plan and handled this project from start to finish.  This will be a fantastic asset for our students and all members of the Southbridge community to use and enjoy for many years to come - ngā mihi nui ki a koutou katoa!