The current Hall of Fame at Te Rauparaha Arena features, from left, Michael Campbell, Patricia Grace and Rex Redden.
The way in which we honour Porirua’s heroes will get a technological boost, and a new policy to govern it.
Earlier this month the Council passed a policy to more clearly govern the Hall of Fame and National Sports Honours Wall, both located at Te Rauparaha Arena.
The Hall of Fame is the portraits of people such as author Patricia Grace and golfer Michael Campbell on the ground floor hallway, while the sports honours wall is upstairs, near the Arena Fitness reception desk.
Both have been in place since the Arena opened in 2008, and 2010, respectively.
Queries on developing a policy over who should be recognised in the two places has been made in recent years, so Porirua Manager Recreation Glenn Quintal says it is an exciting time now that this has been done.
“They haven’t been updated in a while and there is some awareness, and a few questions, over how it should be managed,” he says.
“We want to continue to highlight excellence in our city – this is one way to do that, so it should be done right.”
To that end, instead of photographs in frames for the honours wall, five TV monitors will be installed instead, showing off the national representatives. Work got under way on this on Monday.
More recent representatives will also be added.
There are currently 67 people with portraits on the National Sports Honours Wall.
With the Hall of Fame, nominations will be called for and councillors and the mayor will discuss selections later in the year.
Sports clubs and the public will be encouraged to be involved in this process, Mr Quintal says.
The current names downstairs are Grace, Campbell, Rex Redden (kickboxing), Rodney So’oialo, Jerry Collins, Graham Mourie (all rugby), Michael Kenny (boxing), Bevan Congdon (cricket), Olivia Baker (weightlifting), Don Tricker (softball), Elizabeth Knox (author) and Russell Marshall (government and diplomacy).
Porirua Mayor Anita Baker says there will be an annual review of the names in both the sports honours wall and Hall of Fame.
“We’re going to be engaged in a meaningful process now and we want this way of recognising excellence from within our community to be relevant and engaging to our community and visitors to the Arena,” she said.
“It’s important we have that clarity in the future for such a visible way of highlighting achievement.”
Any costs will come from the existing Recreation Porirua budget.
19 Mar 2020
