Can do, have done, proud of it

September 27, 2008
When Murchison opens its new sport, recreation and community centre this afternoon, it will be the culmination of an effort that was far more than just another small-town fundraising drive. By Geoff Collett . --------------------
Tony Peacock strikes as a man with a healthy dose of the understated ways favoured by rural Kiwi blokes. But standing in the gymnasium at the new sport, recreation and cultural centre in Murchison, he's happy to admit "a huge feeling of pride".
And why not? For nine years, he's helped to guide the project to reality, as chairman of the construction and fundraising committee. With the centre ready for its official opening this afternoon, it's something any small community would be proud of.
But this is more than another new community centre in another rural town. It is a prize-winning effort. The fundraising campaign behind it has won an award for best in the country, and the project itself has been recognised as the best tackled by any community group in the Nelson region in the past year.
It is a tribute to the spirit of a community and a mirror held up to that community, throwing back a clear reflection of a place in fine heart. Tony Peacock is sure that now the centre is ready for use, it will help to keep Murchison in good heart for years to come.
The centre has probably passed most in the outside world by. The steady stream of motorists along State Highway 6 headed to or from Nelson could easily miss the place, which lies across the domain, several stone throws from the main road.
But spend any time in Murchison and it would take a mighty effort of reclusiveness to not see or hear about the centre.
For one thing, as fundraising coordinator Judene Edgar says, "I don't think there would be a community group there that hasn't donated or raised money towards it". And not many individuals, either.
Put it another way: to make the thing happen, the Murchison community had to come up with $600,000 - 20 percent of the estimated total cost of the project - before the Tasman District Council would contribute the rest, an estimated $2.4 million. That's the equivalent of getting $500 from every man, woman and child living in the town or hinterland.
In Nelson, that would be like expecting the city to carry off a $20 million fundraising drive. You can imagine the squawking and derision such a suggestion would attract. Down in Murchison, they got on with it.
Now, Tony Peacock can talk of "$3.2 million worth of tremendous building".
It is a big building, no question - one of the biggest in the town. But it would be a mistake to see it as simple bricks and mortar. It is a community captured in miniature.
Start with the striking native wood used throughout - matai on the stairway, sparkling red and silver beech on the gymnasium floor. It was insisted on by the committee, to remind visitors that they're standing in a place with strong connections to the bush.
The whole lot, probably $60,000 worth, was donated by Lee Pettigrew of Glenhope.
Gear in the first aid room was provided by the town grocery. The function room is named after a livestock company that paid for the rights, but will double as the rugby clubrooms, with one wall reserved (and paid for) by the Murchison Rugby Club for display space.
The audio-visual system, including a data projector, was a gift. The kitchen, with commercial oven, fryers and extractor fans, was sponsored by a local honey company.
The crockery was given by the owners of a cafe. The meeting room furniture is a gift from the Lions club. The walls of the gymnasium are lined with advertising hoardings for, it seems, every business in town.
But that's only the start of it. Lining the long corridor next to the gymnasium is the Buller River Mural, a stylised portrayal of the river Murchison is built on, plastered with little plaque-like fish, kayaks and rafts. Each one was "bought" by a donor, their name engraved on it for posterity - ranging from $100 for a small trout (a four-pounder, according to the promotion) to $10,000 for a raft.
This, more than anything else, is the proof of a community that has outdone itself. The mural accounted for $200,000 of the fundraising effort, more than any other source, including sizeable grants from the Canterbury Community Trust and the Lottery Community Facilities Fund.
Working bees and sausage sizzles became countless. Most professionals who had some involvement with the project ended up giving something extra - a donation, additional uncharged services, materials.
The major construction contract was won by a consortium of Murchison's three building companies, which joined forces to bid against the big out-of-town firms. This saved more tens of thousands, avoiding the need to pay for the builders' travel and accommodation.
Judene Edgar is a professional fundraiser herself, as well as a Richmond-based Tasman district councillor. She has helped to steer various big projects to fruition throughout the district - the Richmond aquatic centre being the most prominent - but has a particular fondness for the Murchison one.
She joined the steering committee before she was elected to the council, and now that the centre has been built, she's staying on.
"You've just got to love a group who, if there's a problem presented, it's 'I'll get my tractor, you get this and you get that', and it's done. They're solution-focused, not problem- focused. And if it involves hard work or rolling up your sleeves even further, they'll do it."
It is a safe bet that when Tasman councillors were asked to support the project back in 2005, at least a few didn't think there was much danger the council's conditional support would be called on. They agreed to raise a loan for 80 percent of the cost only if the community could convince them it would find the other 20 percent. The committee was back six months later to advise the council that it was well on the way.
"(The councillors) were gobsmacked, " Edgar recalls. "At that point, anyone with doubts was converted."
After seven months, Peacock says, the hall committee had raised 80 percent of its share. And now, once donations of materials and time are added, the community's contribution has topped $800,000, the committee reckons.
To put that in perspective, Edgar won this year's Fundraising Institute of New Zealand award for the best capital campaign in the country. The judges commented: "This campaign showed a great can-do attitude and capitalised superbly on the parochialism of heartland New Zealand."
And the centre committee itself won the supreme award at the TrustPower-sponsored Nelson Tasman Community Awards in June. Those judges also talked about "can-do".
Peacock says it was a simple case of getting hooked by a dream, and enough other people signing up to that dream to make it work.
There was plenty of pragmatism involved, too. The need was undeniable. The local school badly wanted a decent-sized indoor sports facility, for netball, basketball and the like. The rugby club was talking about building new clubrooms. The old community centre and sport rooms, converted from school buildings, had become ramshackle.
A community meeting in 1999 identified the need for a new centre as a top priority. The resulting name - the Murchison Sport, Recreation and Cultural Centre - may be a mouthful that suggests a christening by committee, but it also reflects the fact that the building is determinedly going to be for everyone: indoor court sports in the gymnasium, a comfortable base for rugby and other field sports, facilities for business gatherings, school holiday programmes, prizegivings, parties, weddings and whatever else a community gets up to.
Now, opening day has arrived and the Murchison Sport, Recreation and Cultural Centre is sure to be greeted with acclamation. The initial signs have been promising.
Once construction was under way and the full size of the thing became clear, the typical reaction was one of "Holy cow", says Peacock.
Advance visitors have been mightily impressed. Committee member Alison Dodge says she kept hearing the word "awesome" while showing people through. That or a stunned silence - Peacock gave a group a tour the other night and "I've never known a bunch of locals to be so quiet".
The support keeps coming. More donations - it will rely on public goodwill for the long term - and bookings. Andrew Dodge, who has taken over chairing the hall committee now that the building project is largely complete, says that of the 61 days in October and November, just nine don't have a booking.
There are some formalities to see to before then, though. At lunchtime today, six pipe bands from across the top of the south - the Seddon Shield districts - were to march from the Hampden Hotel to the Murchison Domain. Local politicians were to make speeches. The town's oldest resident, Jessie Bradley, the area school's youngest pupil, Maddison Kinzett, and an older pupil, Owen Sim, were to cut the ribbon. The place was to be thrown open for all and sundry to look around until 4.30pm.
"No big bells and whistles, really, " says Peacock. "Then the committee will go home, go to bed and have a good sleep".
But perhaps that's just the understated voice of Murchison talking.