Help us Save Squash in Darwin, Australia
Published: 15 Feb 2011 - 16:59 by ciaranm
Updated: 17 Feb 2011 - 21:32
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Hello all
Firstly, I do apologise for joining the forum and jumping straight on the soapbox, but I feel this is a cause that is worth soapboxing for :)
I am a Darwin [Australia] Squash Association committee member and our club is about to be shut down. This will leave no future for squash in the city of Darwin as we are the sole public squash facility within the Territory Capital. in fact, in July this year, we will be Australia's only capital city without a public squash facility!
We have a number of highly ranked junior players including Rhys Dowling, Australia's number 1 under 15 Male, yet the Territory Government that regularly pumps millions of dollars into all sorts of other sports won't spare us a cent to build a new centre, although we already have the land.
So how can you help? I am trying to garner support from the global squash community via http://savedarwinsquash.com/. It would be great if fellow squash lovers could help us by posting a short message of support on the site and spread the word. It doesn't matter who you are or where you are from, any support for squash in Darwin will benefit us.
If you feel extra helpful, you could post my message on facebook/twitter/club emails or other means to help spread the word.
Thanks so much!
Ciaran
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From rippa rit - 17 Feb 2011 - 21:32
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Darwin is not the only place to lose courts, and you did not have a whole heap of them to start with, maybe three centres. Darwin has had some good players over the years and always flew the flag in National Champs and sent representative teams to individual and teams events.
The first thing I would do is approach the Sport and Rec to see if a 50% arrangement could be made to build a centre attached to say, a swimming complex a bit like Hibiscus Gardens in Brisbane which is actually owned and run by the Brisbane City Council making it a sort of multi sports complex. Sell your land to finance the deal. Promise them a residual income from the existing clubbies. I would not advise the club/association to build and run your own centre as the overheads would be too high in manning it solely day and night.
There is plenty of good publicity about squash being good for heart health, weight control, fitness, all weather, sun safe to bombard the authorities with.
If the locals will not do a thing about it, go as high as you can; Julia would be the limit.
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