Mt Ruapehu chairlift seats help to raise funds for National Park School

Students (from left) Tarn, Mica and Koda Hoyle on an upcycled chairlift seat that is now a friendship seat at National Park School. Photo / Supplied

Old chairlift seats from Mt Ruapehu are being upcycled and sold off to people keen for a piece of mountain memorabilia - and it's raising funds for National Park School's 2020 ski season.

When Mt Ruapehu put out the call that old lift chairs needed new homes, schools from Ohakune, Taupo, National Park and Owhango snapped up nearly 200 chairs.

"The old Rock Garden, National and Centennial lift chairs had come to the end of their life on the mountain so we saw an opportunity for them to be recycled instead of ending up in the scrap heap," Mt Ruapehu commercial manager Cesar Piotto said.

National Park School principal Jane Welburn said on-selling the chairs diverted them from the scrap heap.

"As an environmentally friendly school we saw this as a great way to not only fundraise but to also help the environment," Welburn said.

"The first wave of requests was from people in their 60s keen for a piece of mountain memorabilia.

"Six school dads got hands on and did all the heavy lifting, moving the chairs from the RAL storage yard to the school bus shed. And the kids have kept a chair, which is now a friendship chair out on the playground for the kids to sit and chat.

"The kids have helped with a mountain rubbish clean-up in the past and they're very aware of the maunga and its significance in their community, especially with it right on the doorstep, so they're all happy that they've helped in this environmental project."

Student Tarn Hoyle said the friendship seat idea came about when students were assigned a project to build something to make their school better.

"My little brother Mica Hoyle said that he saw a upcycled chairlift made into a seat up the mountain. It was such a brilliant idea we knew we had to make it our project, but then we needed to come up with a way to make it fit with our school values (integrity, respect and whanaungatanga). We then had it, a friendship seat, somewhere where anyone with their friends or by themselves could sit and other kids in the playground would notice and help them out."

Tarn said the project involved a lot of research to find the right materials for the seat, making it environmentally safe as well as practical and stable. He was pleased they had been able to reuse a piece of machinery.

"Currently there has been a push for kids to put in a big effort to look after and watch over our environment. It would save a lot of trouble finding a place for the chairlifts to go once they are too old and brittle to be used safely."

Dean Lark, part of the Friends of National Park School parents group, has managed the collection of the chairs and upcycled some, repurposing them into an authentic Whakapapa lift chair for sitting in, with the safety bar remounted as legs and complete with their Doppelmayr manufacture number.

These chairs have sold for $500-$600 each. So far $5000 has been raised, with a target of a further $3000 over the coming months. There have been more than 45 requests for four-seater chairs when they become available later in the summer.

This year Friends of National Park School gifted $100 to each child who lives locally year-round so they can take part in the school snow programme run by RAL.