Sport Fix! #2

Turbos had a great win against Otago on Thursday night! There was huge support from the community with an awesome turn out for the game. Their next game is Saturday 29th August against Taranaki so lets see an even bigger crowd at the FMG stadium and don't forget to wear your best Turbos gear!

In other sporting news:

• On Sunday 23rd August there is both the Masters Athletics Winter Weight Pentathlon held at the Massey Universtity Athletics Track commencing at 9am and the Spring Score Orienting Series being held at 552 Ruahine Street Palmerston North with registration opening at 10.30am. For more information on both these events and more coming up visit the events calendar on www.sportmanawatu.org.nz

• The Premier Netball competition is coming to an end with finals this Tuesday 25th August! Fielding A1 and Tu Toa will battle it out for the top spot with Massey A1 and Olympic A1 fighting for 3rd and 4th. Head down to Arena Manawatu and support your favourite team and see some of New Zealands up and coming netball stars in action! Entry fee is $2.50. For more information with any of Palmerston Norths netball teams, competitions or events click on http://www.sportingpulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?assoc=2339&pID=1

• On 6th September Western 1 netball team will play Southland in the 1st game of the Perry Foundation National Championship at Arena Manawatu! Support the local Manawatu girls Abby Hull, Jodi Beaumont, Sam Durie-Aranga, Te Paea Selby Rickit and Kylee Webb as they team up with their Taranaki counterparts to take down Southland! For more information visit www.westernnetball.org.nz

• The nominations for the 2009 Central Energy Trust Sportperson of the Year are now open. Visit www.sportmanawatu.org.nz to nominate. The nominations close at 4pm Thursday 8 October 2009.

If you have any sporting news you would like posted on our blog please email us at justpn@windowslive.com or leave a comment and we will do our best to include it!

Keep up the good work and look out for our next Sporting Fix!

Sport Fix!

If you missed the Manawatu Turbo's game last Sunday, we pulled out a 36-31 win over Counties Manakau! A great start to the season and some great support for the boys so keep up the good work! The next home game is 20th August against Otago so get your best Turbos gear on and go down to the FMG stadium for some quality rugby action and entertainment. For more information check out www.manawaturugby.co.nz

Stay tuned for your next sport fix!

PN Artists- Paul & Fran Dibble

You have probably seen their art work around the city; at Te Manawa, the City Library, and Princess Street to name a few.

Paul and Fran Dibble are world renowned artists who have chosen to base themselves in Palmerston North. One of their most well known pieces is "The New Zealand Memorial for London" which is situated in Hyde Park. In 2005 Paul was announced the winner of a competition to create a memorial for New Zealand in London's Hyde Park. The NZ government paid up to $3 million to secure the site and have the memorial created.

The Dibbles originally came to this fine city as Paul had secured a teaching job at Massey.While teaching, the Dibbles started up their own art business. They found that Palmerston North's relaxed atmosphere was the perfect place to start their business, and work on their art while teaching at the same time. As the business slowly grew Paul and Fran were able to leave their jobs and focus full time on their art work. When they decided to start their family they found that Palmerston North was the best place to do so "... it worked very well with family, when they were young within a day I found I could get the kids to school, do some teaching, work in the business, get them to after school activities cook dinner, etc, which in a bigger centre would be pretty impossible. Also when the children were young I could fit in the odd university paper some years" Fran said.

They like the quiet side that Palmerston North has which a lot of other cities lack."We often go for walks in the Esplanade, it is a really lovely Victoria park that is often overlooked." They also love the stong sense of community that the city has about it, which is another reason they chose to start a family here.

Palmerston North has even insiperd some of their art work. You can see some of this on Princess street, the installment called "The Nectar Eaters" deals with the flax industry in Palmerson's past. Paul also did a series on Huia feathers, the last recorded Huia was apparently in this area, while Fran is currently doing some multi-paneled works that include the "Manawatu maidenhair", a fern unique to this region.

Next time you are walking around Palmerston North see if you can spot their amazing works of art!

The McDonalds Manawatu Jets

The McDonalds Manawatu Jets are the basketball team who represent our region in the National Basketball League. They support our sporting community and encourage community spirit. Here are a few words from the captain Kaine Hokianga about Palmerston North and here’s what he had to say…



For more information about The Jets you can visit their website: http://www.thejets.co.nz/

CentrePoint Theatre

For all of you who don't know yet Palmerston North is the home to the only professional theatre in New Zealand that is situated outside the four main centres! CentrePoint Theatre has everything from comedy, drama, Shakespeare and other creative new plays written by exciting emerging talents from around New Zealand. We caught up with Alaina Moore from CentrePoint who was excited to tell us all about their new show 'The Raft', "Our cast for our upcoming show The Raft is pretty amazing, and we are very proud that they have come here to Palmerston North to be in our show. We have at the Theatre Owen Black who starred as Ethan pierce on Shortland Street (and has actually just came back on Shorty as a ghost!), Laura Hill who played Tony Warner, Catherine Wilkin who is an amazing actress with lots of experience, more recently as Liz Ryan on McLeods Daughters, and John Watson, another very experienced actor!".

Sounds amazing right?! Whats more amazing is that CentrePoint has been hosting quality theatre right here in Palmerston North for 35 years! And with the communities support they will be doing it for another 35 years and continue to keep the cultural vibrancy in Palmerston North alive!

For any more information on the CentrePoint Theatre their website, http://centrepoint.co.nz is great and easy to find what your looking for! You will recognise a few more faces on the website as well!

Creative Sounds Society Inc. and The Stomach!

Palmerston North is home to 'Creative Sounds Society Incorporated' which is a unique non-profit organisation that supports local musicians, artists and performers. They work to improve individual self esteem and community cultural development.

'The Stomach', their homebase on 84 Lombard Street, offers an alcohol/drug/smokefree venue for individuals of all ages to express themselves artistically. Here's Manager Craig Black and Sound Engineer Sebastian Hesp talking about this great organisation in our community...



For more information on Creative Sounds and The Stomach, you can visit their website www.creativesounds.org.nz

Jono Naylor THE Mayor!

Jono Naylor is the current Mayor of Palmerston North and loves this city more than a dog loves his bone! He is aware that Palmerston North residents aren’t always positive about their home; and knows of outsiders who talk this city down. Like us, Jono encourages everyone to make the most of this great place! We had a chat to him about what he likes best about this city and how he does his part to spread community spirit...

Fred Dagg: A Kiwi icon and a Palmerston North local

In the early 1970s the Palmerston North local satirist John Clarke invented the comic figure of the black-singletted, gumboot- wearing Fred Dagg. 

He was instantly a hit with the New Zealand public and sported a look that is still recognisable to New Zealanders. Fred wore a crumpled hat, black singlet, ripped shorts and gumboots making him a celebration as well as a mockery of the typical “kiwi bloke”. 

He appears to be simple but held a charming, humorous and fantastic view of the world. With his subtle humour he wowed the audiences, making such an impression with New Zealand that he has been an icon ever since. 

He only ever recorded three hours of television time but

that was enough to charm a nation. The Fred Dagg character allowed John to venture into song with The Gumboot Song, and We Don’t Know How Lucky We Are, just to name a couple. Both songs remain two extremely well known kiwi anthems.

John Clarke moved to Australia in the late 1970’s, but Fred Dagg lives on as an enduring Kiwi icon in New Zealand, even inspiring an annual Gumboot Festival in the farming town of Taihape. Since moving overseas John Clarke has gone on to establish himself as a top script writer and personality and has been involved in film making. He still appears regularly on Australian television doing political satire sketches with actor comedian Bryan Dawe. In the process of this blog we had the awesome opportunity of grabbing John Clarke’s opinion on Palmerston North from when he lived here. And this is what he said...

I was born in Palmerston North in 1948. We lived in Milverton Avenue and I went to College St School. I remember PN with great fondness. Kids developed a sense of independence, possibly because each kid had a bike and you could be part of a squadron or fly solo. There were fewer cars on the road then and I rode out to towns like Ashhurst and Bunnythorpe with friends. I played sport with kids who went on to represent the country. There was a sense of connection with what New Zealand was about because the Manawatu was a rich farming area and the city was growing. It was a fair and even place. The rich did not live on a hill overlooking the harbour, nor the poor in a sunless valley. I hope I still carry the values I developed there.

All best,

John

Spoken by a true icon! His words should encourage any one living in Palmerston North today to be proud of where they are and remember that; until you go elsewhere in the world we often don’t realise how lucky we are!

Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey is a well-known radio personality in New Zealand. Much of the nation wakes up to his show, 'The Morning Madhouse' on The Edge 93.0FM.

Dom Harvey is proud to call himself a "Palmerstonian" and he finds himself "defending it at least once a week to people who screw their nose up at the mention of Palmy."

To begin his radio career he worked at local radio station 92.2 as Mike West and Baldrick (Dom), they worked together for 11 years. Dom says that "some of his best friends and fondest memories come from Palmy." At the moment Dom only visits for short periods, and he mainly spends the time in town to visit friends and when in town he will go to his favourite cafes including Stage Door and Cafe Cuba.

Community spirit is high in Palmerston North also. "As for the people, well the locals were great and with the uni there was a nice regular turn over of fresh faces in the city." Dom thinks the city has a lot to offer residents, with Massey University and UCOL bringing an influx of youth to Palmerston North.To create more pride in Palmerston North Dom believes that there needs to be a prominent tourist attraction, a reason for people to visit "something like a luge could possibly work" as we have many hills and ranges around the city. When asked if he would ever move back to Palmerston North he described how his work at the moment was very important to him so he'll go where ever work takes him; "...if that's Palmerston North that'd be awesome."

Often on air in the mornings we can hear Dom promote his home city or discuss his relationship with the city which is usually positive. He also likes how the square now looks and he recently walked through it on a friday night and was extremely happy, stating; "nobody beat me up or stole my shoes".

Dom will always have a soft spot for Palmerston North as this is where he grew up and started his successful broadcasting career.

Website - www.theedge.co.nz

OBO- Taking on the sporting industry

OBO is a Palmerston North based company that makes world class Hockey Goalie gear. OBO saw a gap in the market and created revolutionary new lightweight products that gave goalies flexibility and agility they had never had before. The range is also available in a wide number of styles and colours. The Hockey world has spoken and OBO now have 60% of the market. 80% of Olympic hockey goal keepers wear OBO gear.

Simon Barnett, the entrepreneur of OBO, took some time out of his busy day to share his thoughts on Palmerston North with us...

Simon agrees that Palmerston North is a great place to live, and to bring up children; "It [Palmerston North] has been very kind to myself and my family". Simon stated that; there are many good things about Palmerston North- the people, the ease of accessibility, the parks, sports grounds, and business opportunities. He also believes that Palmerston North needs more self belief, and needs to appreciate all that Palmerston North has to offer its residents. He is of the opinion that Palmerston North is a great place to start a business, as there are committed people, plenty of resources, and great accessibility.

OBO is a prime example of a Palmerston North business succeeding in the cutthroat arena of international sporting apparel.

www.obo.co.nz