Onemana surf club gains from Covid-19 'shovel-ready' fund

CLUB EFFORT: Archaeologist, iwi representative, builders, council and surf club members discuss the upgrade of Onemana Surf Club. Photo / Coastal News

More than nine years in the making, Onemana Surf Club's $550,000 building upgrade inspired a karakia on Tuesday as the project begins to take shape.

The club is among surf lifesaving clubs on the Coromandel to have a reprieve from lost fundraising due to Covid-19 with the Government's granting a combined $1.7 million from its "shovel-ready" funding pool.

Of Coromandel clubs, Pauanui Surf Life Saving Club received $676,000, Tairua Surf Life Saving Club $699,000 and Onemana Surf Life Saving Club $317,000 in an announcement by the Minister for the Community and Voluntary Sector, Poto Williams.

The minister said funding replaces money unable to be raised due to Covid-19 restrictions and the loss of traditional funding and fundraising opportunities.

Longtime club chairman Laurie Stubbing said while "it won't be palatial", the upgrade will go one level above the existing building footprint to create a community asset and help volunteers do their job.

Onemana Surf Club chairman Laurie Stubbing. Photo / Coastal News

"We were the smallest amount because we are the second smallest club in New Zealand," says Laurie. "To raise that sort of money the club raised half over 16 years, so it's a lot.

"We're ecstatic about it all. We've never had a clubroom and never had enough space for equipment, so when it rains we've got to send the nippers home because there's nowhere for them to go inside."

Onemana surf club serves a beach settlement that swells from a permanent population of less than 200 to about 2900 in the peak of summer. Like all surf clubs on the busy Coromandel east coast, it relies on volunteer patrollers outside of the paid guards provided by Surf Lifesaving New Zealand.

Laurie says residents had objected over the years, concerned that a full facility with a bar might be included, which is not the case.

A pōhutukawa tree that will help obscure residents' view of the club had grown in the years the club had been trying to raise money, which was often spent because it was needed operationally.

Among supporters are contractors Leisurecom, which will build the pod including lifeguard tower in their factory in Cambridge and deliver it to the site, reducing the time spent working on the reserve.

The area around the existing building footprint is nationally significant for heritage, and archaeologist Brigid Gallagher was among those at a site meeting on Tuesday.

"It's had many archaeologists taking bite-sized chunks out of it, part of that has been research-led, part has been development for the community over this foreshore and reserve when they developed Onemana itself from when it was a farm, and part of it is from erosion from the sea," she said.

"What keeps coming through these tiny chunks of loss is acknowledgment that this was an early home base [papa kāinga] and people came to this sheltered and protected place for their food [kai]."

Ngati Paoa kaitiaki Tau Hikaiti Paora said the iwi supported the project because of its community ethos: "We had one fatality last year and the view of Ngati Paoa is that this is providing for the safety of the public."

Also granted money were the Sunset Beach Community Hub and Lifeguard Facility ($454,000), Eastern Region Rescue Centre ($2,890,000) and Papamoa Surf Life Saving Club ($800,000).

The new Eastern Region Rescue Centre will be in Mount Maunganui and will serve as the hub of Surf Life Saving New Zealand's eastern region operations.

"This is a significant investment which will create jobs while building infrastructure in several coastal communities, which will in turn have lasting benefits for those local communities and for all people that use those beaches," said Poto Williams.