Opening of Te Awamutu College Gymnasium

Rau rangatira mā, e nga rangatahi o tēnei kura, e huihui nei, tēnei aku mihi māhana ki a koutou, kia ora tātou katoa.   Distinguished guests and students of the school, who are gathered here, warm greetings to you all.

I specifically acknowledge: Jim Mylchreest, Chairperson of the Te Awamutu College Board of Trustees; Tony Membery, Principal of Te Awamutu College; Keith Millar, former Principal of Te Awamutu College; Your Worship Alan Livingston, Mayor of the Waipa; Russell Easton, the project designer and manager—tēnā koutou katoa.

Thank you for inviting me here today for the opening of Te Awamutu College’s new gymnasium complex – and in particular the Keith Millar Gymnasium.

I want to congratulate the College on the completion of this major project – one that will result in great benefit not only for the school but for the whole of the Te Awamutu community.

Sir Winston Churchill once said, ‘Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.’   Sport and fitness are clearly of great importance to this country.

When New Zealand made its bid to host the 2011 Rugby World Cup, it was said that New Zealand would be ‘a stadium of four million people’.  This phrase probably sounded a bit fanciful to the members of the International Rugby Board when they first heard it.  To New Zealanders, however, it was a given!  In the event visiting teams found that New Zealanders cheered for them just as keenly as for their own team.  Though only in games the All Blacks weren’t playing in, I hasten to add!

In this year’s Olympic Games, it has been calculated that if the medal count had been taken on a ‘per head of population’ basis, New Zealand would have been ranked fourth. 

We have even had an Olympic medal-winning governor general. Arthur Porritt, who was at the time a medical student studying in England, won a bronze medal in the 100m race in the 1924 Olympic Games – the race that formed the centrepiece of the movie Chariots of Fire.   It is hardly a surprise then to learn that Sir Arthur Porritt was our first New Zealand-born Governor General and served on the International Olympic Committee for many years.

Sport plays a huge role in our society – a role that goes way beyond the questions of having healthy citizens and who won how many medals.

I think one of the greatest things that sport does is give us active experience, often very early in life, of operating as part of a team – and we carry that experience into other aspects of our lives – into the workplace, our friendships and our family relationships. 

In sport it’s a question of team spirit, of fair play, of not letting the side down.  In the Army, which is where I spent most of my career, we thought of it as comradeship.

Being someone that others can rely on - not only to do their best but to look out for their mates - is a very important consideration in a soldier.  I quickly saw, too, that the satisfaction of having achieved a goal with your mates has a special quality to it.

Being the captain of a sports team while still at high school is also wonderful early training in leadership, and I encourage young people to step up and take such opportunities when they are presented.  I remember the responsibilities and the satisfaction of captaining my high school’s “A” volleyball team.

Te Awamutu College has a proud heritage of students who have stepped up and achieved success in sport, being the alma mater of equestrian rider Andrew Nicholson, golfer Philip Tataurangi, discus thrower and shot putter Ian Winchester, cyclist Tim Gudsell, rower Graham Oberlin-Brown and rugby players Jonno Gibbes and Carla Hohepa, among others.  I am sure many more will follow in their footsteps now that there are effectively two new gyms in which to learn and practise.

Before officially opening the new gym I want to pay tribute to the Te Awamutu College Board of Trustees for having undertaken this ambitious project, and brought it so successfully to fruition.

This is strong leadership befitting a school whose motto is “Kia Kaha”.  It is an inspirational motto and particularly in the case of this school as I understand it inspired a Te Awamutu College old boy by the name of Neil Finn to write a song called Kia Kaha.  

It is now my great pleasure to declare the Keith Millar Gymnasium open and to appropriately close by saying: Kia ora, kia kaha, kia manawanui huihui tātou katoa – be well, be strong, be courageous!