Football is coming to the central city. This Wednesday, July 4, 16 teams from a range of workplaces will battle it out for the Workplace World Cup. The friendly competition which coincides with the Football World Cup in Russia, is being organised by Gap Filler and will take place at the Grass Games pitches the organisation has created in part of the East Frame (now known as One Central, a Fletcher Living development).

(Grass Games pitches in the East Frame, now called One Central.)

From 12 - 2pm teams of 4-a-side will play fast and furious 5-minute halves in a knock-out draw.

Teams competing on the day will represent a range of workplaces. There are designers, statisticians (StatsNZ), conservationists (DOC), architects, bureaucrats, engineers, chefs and more all signed up to play.

Teams will represent these organisations and businesses: Snorkel Creative, Make Collective, Vodafone Xone, Context Architects, McCarthy Design, Vesuvio and Gatherings restaurants, Rata Foundation, Assurity Consulting, StatsNZ, TradeMe, DOC, Aurecon, Regenerate Christchurch, Biz Dojo, Christchurch City Council and Orbica.

“We were surprised at how quickly the teams signed up” says Elisha Blogg, Gap Filler project developer. “It’s going to be a fun event!”

The teams will be playing for the Workplace World Cup trophy and Workplace World Cup mugs for the winners and runners-up. There will also be giveaways throughout the tournament.

Spectators are very welcome. There will be live commentary from Gap Filler’s Grandstandium by Mike Field, former RDU Breakfast host, which promises to be amusing and entertaining. The Grandstandium also provides sheltered seating for 30 people. People are encouraged to come on down and support colleagues or watch some fun, friendly football and have a long lunch.

There will be food trucks on site for delicious kai. Popular burger caravan Stray Burger and Tommy Taco will be serving up lunch supported by Empire Coffee with their coffee tuk tuk.

Key Information
Date/Time: Wednesday 4 July, 12 - 2pm
Location: 174 Manchester Street, close to Hereford Street
Featuring: Food trucks, coffee, live commentary
FREE

Background
The Grass Games pitches are part of Gap Filler’s programme of activations of the East Frame under the banner, ‘Placemaking at One Central.’ This programme offers diverse activities, social enterprise experiments, public amenities – all exploring different ways we can grow community now, and sustain it in the future residential development to come.

One Central is Fletcher Living’s name for the five blocks between Lichfield and Armagh Streets along Manchester, also known as the East Frame.

Placemaking At One Central is a partnership between Gap Filler and Fletcher Living to help create great central city residential communities. Around 2000 people are expected to live in the new neighbourhood.

It’s the first time in New Zealand that a major developer is partnering with community and social innovators to run a programme of community-building activities at the pre-development stage. The programme will be rolled out over 2.5 years and is being largely funded by Fletcher Living. This initiative is a big win for many Christchurch civic groups, who have been advocating for years for more community involvement in and alongside long-term developments.

Gap Filler’s primary role is to facilitate other groups to realise temporary, community-minded projects on the East Frame land, and then to ‘fill in the gaps’ with some of Gap Filler’s own original projects. These projects are specifically trying to explore how the temporary activations can help foster long-term community outcomes in the new development.

Placemaking at One Central became a reality in November 2017 with the first projects going live, and will run until at least November 2019.

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