The $5 ducks are back

Ducks ready to set sail . . . the Five Buck a Duck Race is back. Rotary Club of Gisborne president Warwick Callender (left) holds some of the small yellow ducks that will be in the first wave of duck racers heading downriver from the Peel Street Bridge on Saturday, November 18. Fellow club member Julian Avisenis, who is a Life Education trustee, and Pat Seymour, who chairs the local Life Education organisation, hold “corporate ducks” that businesses can sponsor for $200 each. Picture by Liam Clayton

Life Education Trust is bringing back the Five Buck a Duck Race in Gisborne after a break of almost three years.

It will be held at 12.30pm on Saturday, November 18.

The race is a game of chance in which numbered yellow plastic ducks are dropped into the Taruheru River from the Peel Street Bridge, to be carried by the outgoing tide to a finish line near the Marina Park boat ramp. It has been compared to Winnie-the-Pooh’s game Poohsticks.

Participants buy a $5 ticket bearing the number of a duck. If the duck with their number finishes in the top seven, they get a prize; they also have the possibility of their number being drawn for one of many spot prizes.

Proceeds go to the operation of Life Education Trust Gisborne, East Coast and Wairoa — one of the trust’s 32 regional organisations around New Zealand working with schools to educate and empower children to make healthy choices.

Using a shared-planning approach with schools, the trust’s educators cover identity and resilience, relationships and communities, food and nutrition, human biology, and substances.

The Rotary Club of Gisborne West staged the first Gisborne duck race on Sunday, March 5, 2006. The free use of a C R Taylor Gisborne Ltd crane allowed a net filled with the ducks to be suspended above the Taruheru River. Club member Graeme Nicoll waded into the river to release a slipknot to let the ducks fall into the water. This form of release was used for the first three years, and then the Peel Street Bridge became the drop-off point.

In 2013, club member Peter Dawson drove the idea of a corporate duck race to be run in conjunction with the yellow-plastic-duck version. These ducks were decoys, which could be decorated and signwritten to advertise their sponsors.

That version of the race continues, and 100 corporate ducks — sponsored to the tune of $200 each –—will be released once the small ducks are on their way down the Taruheru.

First prize for the sponsor of the winning corporate duck is an Air New Zealand mystery weekend for two.

First prize in the 1200-ticket Five Buck a Duck Race is a Country Helicopters scenic flight for four; second is a Pro Scooter Orix; third, a George Foreman Grill; fourth, a Russell Hobbs three-in-one handheld blender; fifth, a Sunbeam citrus juicer; sixth, a Magic Bullet; and seventh, a skateboard.

All related stalls and activities will be located at Marina Park.

Since the start of the duck race, the city’s two Rotary clubs have joined forces under the name Rotary Club of Gisborne and they continued to run the event for several years.

However, Covid-19 intervened and the weather caused a postponement from a planned autumn 2023 return.

Rotary club members have stepped back from the role of event “drivers” to that of “helpers”, allowing Life Education Trust members and supporters to run the event.

Pat Seymour, who chairs Life Education Gisborne, East Coast and Wairoa, said the organisation was “very grateful” that Rotary had shared the duck race proceeds with Life Education for the years its members had organised the event. Life Education trustees had always helped on the day. Now the roles were being reversed. Life Education was running the event, and Rotary was helping.

Drinks and a sausage sizzle would be available, along with free face-painting and bouncy castle.

“We want to make it a fun day for people to come over from the Farmers Market to Marina Park and enjoy whānau activities,” Pat Seymour said.

She thanked helpers in advance for their contributions, such as the prize presentation commentary by Media Works staff and the on-the-water tasks being undertaken by Gisborne Yacht Club members.

“Gisborne Yacht Club is providing the boats and person power on the river to put out the booms and keep the ducks under control,” she said.

“One year we had a wind and a brisk tide, and the little ducks bobbed over the boom and headed for the ocean, so we need seafarers on the river as a precaution.

“The proceeds will help us to continue delivering Life Education to all tamariki in primary and intermediate schools across Tairāwhiti, Gisborne, the East Coast and Wairoa. Our educator and the mobile classroom visit across this region.”