In the year leading up to their Centenary in 2022, Pakuranga Tennis Club has clinched the prestigious Auckland Tennis award of Club of the Year.
The award is given to an outstanding club that creates a welcoming and enjoyable environment for members and guests to play tennis and socialise.
Tennis Auckland look for good administration, coaching programmes, interclub participation and success, events, marketing and promotion as well as engagement with the local community.
They also consider facilities and general club spirit, the strength of their volunteer base, plus support and engagement with Tennis Auckland.
Club president Jenny Richardson was thrilled to receive the award at a recent Tennis Auckland function held to celebrate Interclub competition winners and those individuals and clubs that had achieved throughout the year.
Pakuranga had a successful Interclub season across both senior and junior grades and is also in consideration for Interclub of the Year in both competitions.
As a result of this success the club is now eligible for promotion to Caro Bowl Reserve Men, Second Grade Men, Ferrier Cup and Presidents after winning and placing in a number of grades.
“It was particularly pleasing to see our junior players achieving this year,” Richardson said.
“Our junior boys Kevin Li, Keean Jang, Roger Yang and Mikihiro Ukegawa won the Scarboro Junior Boys Caro Bowl competition and were also presented with their awards at the function.”
Club spirit is well to the fore at Pakuranga, demonstrated recently by the club’s participation in Tennis Auckland’s ‘Love Tennis’ promotion.
Some 50 club members volunteered to make this a success, organising ball games, competitions, kids face painting, a continuous barbeque and coaching activities that resulted in the club welcoming 54 new members over the two days of the promotion.
Other notable achievements this year have included junior tennis convenor Michelle Savusa, being a finalist in Howick Sports Awards Volunteer of the Year.
The club was voted the #1 Kids Sports activity and fourth Most Popular Kids Activity in Manukau City by ActiveActivities, an online marketplace set up to connect parents and carers with providers of kids’ activities.
The club’s 100-year history is set to culminate early in the new millennia with a move to a new location in Lloyd Elsmore Park following the incorporation of the club’s current Pigeon Mountain (Ohuiarangi) site under the Tupuna Maunga Authority (ancestral mountains).
“The club will share the new location with other sports organisations whilst maintaining its own identity in a proposed sports hub at the park,” said Richardson.
The club is kicking off celebrations with a function to be held in the Bell House family homestead which is preserved today in the Howick Historical Village, Lloyd Elsmore Park.
“The Bell family is of particular relevance to the club as the original public meeting called to form a tennis club in Pakuranga was organised by local farmer ‘Dufty’ Bell and Robert Bell was one of our early presidents”, said Paul Tibbutt, who is co-ordinating arrangements for the club’s centenary.
A weekend of activities, including a formal dinner, is then planned for the weekend of February 11 -13, 2022. Past and present members are encouraged to contact the club secretary at paktennis@xtra.co.nz with name, email and postal address to receive news and details of celebrity events.
