Keeping family active at Christmas

170115JGKayaking Kayakers on the Whanganui River. PICTURE / JORO GRIBBLE

With the Christmas holidays fast approaching, the team at Sport Whanganui is delighted to be looking back on a great year of community participation in sport and recreation across the board.
And while the Sport Whanganui office is about to close over the holiday period, our region's fantastic community will be ensuring the local sport and recreation scene remains as vibrant as ever.
Here we've listed just a few highlights from upcoming family sporting events and activities aimed at keeping kids and families busy and active throughout December and January:
Whanganui Multisport Club, with support from Sport Whanganui, is this week launching its 2015-16 kayak holiday programmes, aimed at encouraging and enabling Year 7 and 8 children to give kayaking a go.
The programmes include the choice of four two-hour morning or afternoon sessions with dedicated kayaking coaches at a cost of just $20 for the whole programme.
The first of the three programmes, which is kicking off tomorrow and running from December 17-22 is already full, but more are planned for January 18-22 and April 25-29. Spaces are limited, so if youngsters are wanting to take part in these they are encouraged to sign up now!
For more information about the kayak holiday programmes and to download entry forms, visit www.whanganuimultisport.net or you can contact Nicole Dryden at nicole@sportwhanganui.co.nz.
For families with kids who fancy mixing holiday celebrations with some fun indoor pool activities, there's the chance on Friday, December 18 to have a splashing great time by joining the Splash Centre team for its "School's Out!" party - hydroslides and inflatables included!
The Centre is also running learn-to-swim (January 6-15) and holiday life-saving (January 11-15) programmes for kids and families and will be open every day except Christmas Day (week days: 8am-6pm; public holidays: 10am-5pm). For more information, visit www.splashcentre.co.nz or call on (06) 349 0113.
Boys & Girls Gym Club Wanganui will be running an action-packed holiday programme from January 11-29 and YMCA Central's OSCAR Holiday Programme, which caters for 5-13-year-olds and features plenty of sport and recreation activities, is running December 14-23 and January 5-29.
And remember that some of our region's high-profile sporting spectator events will be taking place around Christmas - such as the Boxing Day Cemetery Circuit and the first of the NZ 2016 Jetsprint Champs ( start on Sunday, December 27).
And finally, the Sport Whanganui team would like to wish everyone in the Whanganui, Rangitikei and Ruapehu districts a very Merry and "Active" Christmas and New Year!
We look forward to a wonderful 2016 and to continuing partnering with our community to help develop, build and promote sport and recreation across our region for the benefit of all.
The Sport Whanganui office closes for Christmas shut-down at midday on Tuesday, December 22 and will re-open on Tuesday, January 12. See you all in the New Year!