Meads to be guest speaker at Sport Canterbury club

Meads to be guest speaker at Sport Canterbury club night

All Blacks rugby legend Colin Meads will be guest speaker at Sport Canterbury’s first annual club night on March 13.

The gala evening at Christchurch Casino will be aimed at highlighting the need for clubs to become sustainably viable in today’s professional sporting world and to launch a new initiative to assist clubs.

An auction during the night will also raise funds for the new initiative.

A signed pair of David Tua’s boxing gloves, signed NPC and Crusaders rugby jerseys, a cricket bat signed by all the New Zealand World Cup cricket squad and a Team New Zealand America’s Cup signed shirt are among the items to go under the hammer.

Sport Canterbury chief executive Selwyn Maister said the evening was not just an opportunity to raise money but also aimed at supporting the grassroots of sport.

``This is the launch of a new initiative to help clubs become more viable,’’ Dr Maister said.

``We hope this club night will become an annual event. There is much evidence that many sports clubs in Canterbury are struggling to survive.

``There are also far too many clubs for our current environment. Our recent survey showed shortages of volunteers, little planning ahead and too many clubs running successive years of financial deficits. Obviously clubs cannot survive for long in this state.’’

Sport Canterbury intends to set up a service to assist clubs in planning for the future, volunteer recruitment and fundraising ideas. They will also establish and maintain a database of sport clubs and their state of viability.

Canterbury has more than 1000 clubs in the region and Sport Canterbury has surveyed some of them to see how best they can help them survive in today’s world of professional sport.

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