New
Zealand Winter Games
Planning Begins
Tuesday, 27 November 2007, 4:38 pm
Press Release: Winter Games NZ
An interim board has been created
to develop a proposal to host the inaugural New Zealand Winter
Games in 2009.
The New Zealand Winter Games concept
has the support of the New Zealand Olympic Committee and the
National Olympic Committees of the Pacific Rim, including Canada,
the United States, Japan, China, Korea, Mexico and Australia.
The interim board of Winter Games
NZ comprises Vito Lo Iacono - Major Events New Zealand; Eion
Edgar - President of the New Zealand Olympic Committee and Peter
Cox – SPARC.
An initial feasibility study has
been completed with favorable results and the interim board
has contracted Arthur Klap as Winter Games NZ CEO.
Initial funding for the project
has come from Major Events New Zealand with a grant of $500,000.
Additional funding will be sought from corporate sponsorship
and community trusts.
Eion Edgar Chairman of Winter Games
NZ believes the New Zealand Winter Games will provide be beneficial
New Zealand as a whole, as well as elite winter athletes.
”New Zealand can offer winter
athletes with superb facilities and conditions during the European
summer and we hope the event will become a regular event on
Winter Sport Calendar,” he said. “While we can benefit
athletes, we believe the event will establish New Zealand as
a highly credible winter sports destination bringing significant
sporting, social and economic benefits.
New Zealand Olympic Committee Secretary
General Barry Maister is delighted the NZOC can lend its support
to the New Zealand Winter Games. “The proposed Winter Games
will provide our growing winter sports with outstanding opportunities
compete against some of the best Winter athletes in the world
just ahead of the Winter Olympic Games in 2010.”
With feasibility work complete,
Winter Games NZ will now appoint a permanent board and establish
a charitable trust to manage the development and hosting of
the games. Read
Winter Games Spinoff.pdf
Southern
Ski Areas Blanketed in Snow
Snow falls overnight and off and
on today has blanketed the Southern Alps leaving skiers, snowboarders
and mountain crews buzzing with anticipation for the season
ahead.
The Remarkables Ski Manager Ross
Lawrence said the mid-winter conditions had changed the landscape
from green to white.
“We’ve received 20cm
of snow and experienced some go
od
snow falls. It’s starting to ease a bit now but temperatures
are still very cold at around minus two degrees,” he said.
Across the valley at Coronet Peak,
10cm of snow has fallen and continues to fall on the road below
the development of the new base building.
Further north, Mt Hutt has received
10cm of snow.
Coronet Peak is scheduled to open
on Saturday June 7, Mt Hutt on June 14 and The Remarkables,
June 21.
The
Stash at the Remarkables
All major earthworks are now completed
on The Stash at The Remarkables, and work has begun on creating
the features, including this trapezoid fea
ture
(pictured), unique to the kilometre long run.
A Jake Burton signature run, The
Stash at The Remarkables is designed to provide riders with
a big mountain terrain park that follows the natural lines of
the mountain. Features include rock-wall rides, log jibs, cliff
drops, a stone hut and other obstacles hidden away.
The Remarkables Manager Ross Lawrence said it was a time consuming
process creating the features, particularly the wooden features
that needed to be carefully crafted, and finally sanded and
coated with polyurethane to enhance slickness and enjoyment
for all freestyle riders and skiers.
Smaller
Hilton plans expansion
By CHRIS MORRIS - Wednesday,
23rd April 2008
PLANS
for a scaled-back $60 million Hilton Hotel in Queenstown have
won the approval of the height
of the building by 1.6m and the number of hotel rooms by 22.
The concessions were made following a round of court assisted
mediation between the developers and concerned neighbours, who
feared the impact the hotel would have on their views, and shading
during winter. Judge Jackson’s ruling, which overturned an earlier
Queenstown Lakes District Council decision last year to decline
resource consent, meant the hotel could proceed with 103 hotel
rooms.
However, Dan McEwan yesterday
told the Otago Daily Times plans to expand the complex were
already being finalised, with designs for a second wing of 43
hotel rooms already complete. The wing, to be located behind
the main hotel complex, would bring the total number of hotel
rooms to 146 if granted resource consent.
He said the frustrating resource consent process had resulted
in a ‘‘heavily modified’’ Hilton Hotel complex, which he doubted
would be economically viable without the addition of the second
wing. ‘‘A hotel only really becomes viable at 125 rooms and
optimal at 175 rooms when it starts to operate well. ‘‘We have
got to make the numbers up,’’ he said.
He believed the additional wing would not strike hurdles in
the resource consent process.
Construction of the main hotel complex on an undulating site
at 94-130 Frankton Rd was expected to begin by Christmas
and be completed in time for the Rugby World Cup in 2011, he
said.
Pounamu Hotel Nominee Ltd is an offshoot of the Auckland
based McEwan Group, which is also planning to develop a Hilton
Hotel in Dunedin’s
former chief post office building. Mr McEwan said his company’s
Queenstown Hilton had become a tortuous process since its inception
with purchase of the land in September 2001.
He had watched other five star hotel developments such as those
planned at Kawarau Falls Station precede while his own dragged
slowly through the design and resource consent process, only
to be declined, before being approved on appeal. The proposal
had attracted 106 submissions, including 63 in support, 41 in
opposition, one in partial support and one providing comment.
Independent commissioners Collins and Macleod ruled the application
had failed on ‘‘technical grounds’’ as a noncomplying activity
that would negatively impact on neighbours through shading,
loss of views and a visual dominance over the surrounding area.
‘‘I was going to pull the pin on it late last year. It just
got too hard,’’ Mr McEwan said yesterday. ‘‘But we had done
so much work the good old Kiwi spirit comes out and we didn’t
give in. We kept on fighting.’’
Despite the delays and growing competition in the five-star
market, Mr McEwan was confident the Hilton brand’s international
recognition and the development’s proximity to downtown Queenstown
would now ensure the venture was successful.
‘‘The town certainly needs more high-level accommodation. It’s
got too much apartment accommodation,’’ he said.
‘‘The proof will be in the pudding, when it’s finished and it’s
competing against everything else.’’
Environment Court, but the developers
are already planning to expand the complex. Judge Jon Jackson,
in a decision released to media yesterday, ruled the hotel development
could proceed after developers Dan and Kelly McEwan of Pounamu
Hotel Nominee Ltd agreed to reduce the
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Thousands
converge on Arrowtown for festival street parade
By WILL HINE - The Southland Times
| Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Unwitting visitors to Arrowtown
on Saturday may have thought there was another goldrush on as
thousands swamped the small town for the annual Southland Times
Festival Street Parade.
Left: The
Soutland Times Pirate Ship Float
Centrepiece of the 11-day Arrowtown
Autumn Festival, the parade again proved extremely popular this
year, pulling more than 8000 spectators.
Organiser Julie Hughes said the
crowd was the biggest she had seen at the event. "It was
bigger than it's ever, ever, ever been. How many people? I don't
know. Eight thousand, eight and a half?" The streets were
absolutely chocka with nary a vantage point left as the mid-afternoon
parade wound its way leisurely through the town.
Leading the parade was a long procession
of vintage cars, followed by the Arrowtown fire brigade, with
a large contingent representing the service as part of its 75th
jubilee celebrations.
Then the parade began in earnest,
with The Southland Times pirate ship ushering in the rest of
the prancing, marching, pomping menagerie.
Comic book and Star Wars characters,
cubs and scouts, dogs big and small; this parade had it all.
One boy watching on the town's
main street had his cap stolen by a brazen juggler.
Stone-footed for 5 seconds, the
lad then capered into the parade in pursuit of the thief, chasing
him 100m along the street to the laughs of the watching crowd.
Thousands lingered when the parade
ended, many sampling the arts, crafts and entertainment of the
TrustPower Market.
Luana Frear, of Lake Hayes Estate,
was a volunteer for the day, helping to keep the swelling crowd
back as the parade moved through town.
Queuing up for a hard-earned waffle
afterwards, she said the day was fantastic.
"It was really good. The weather
was just great." Asked to choose a favourite section, Ms
Frear said the comic book characters.
"They were the best — they
seemed to get amongst the crowd." Spectators Ian and Iris
Roberts had come from Dunedin for the whole week, after attending
the festival last year. "It was so good last year we rented
a house this year," Mr Roberts said.
The couple looked forward to staying
the rest of the week and would be checking out more of the festival
including a performance of The Importance of being Earnslaw.
The actionflite Red Bull
Pitts Special Performed a stunning aerobatic display at the
beginning of the street parade.
