Flaxmere Whānau Fun Day

Families flocked to Flaxmere Park at the end of last month to celebrate the suburb and its award-winning park at a Whānau Fun Day.

Earlier this year, Flaxmere Park was named New Zealand’s Active Park of the Year Award in the 2020 New Zealand Parks awards, run by Recreation Aoteaoroa.

The judges were impressed with the huge range of opportunities for physical and social activity at Flaxmere Park, saying “every part of the park, from the cycleways to the splashpad, is constantly in use”.

To mark the honour, and show just what the judges meant, the Whānau Fun Day kicked off with the regular Saturday morning parkrun (which has now been going for a year), and was followed up by games of ki-o-rahi, gutterboard, disc golf, tug-o-war, karaoke and other entertainment and stalls.

Flaxmere councillor Henare O’Keefe said it was great to celebrate the award and Flaxmere itself.

“We want to tell the whole word about it – Flaxmere is a great place to live work and play – the population is growing and expected to continue doing so – that’s because of the people coming from outside of Flaxmere to live here.”

The increasing numbers of residents were coupled with exciting developments such as the Kimi Ora Community School playground upgrade, and housing developments underway for Waingakau and Tarbet Street, he said.

Fellow Flaxmere councillor Peleti Oli said it was great for the community to be coming together again after the COVID-19 lockdown.

“I love that things like sports and the boxing academy are going again – they give us that feeling of belonging - we’re kicking COVID in the butt and getting our community spirit and vibe back again.

“People are returning to work, getting their lives back to normal, kids are going back to school – being able to go and have dinner with your family was something that was missing  - getting that normality back is good.”

The Flaxmere Park award win followed last year’s opening of the newly revamped playground, and last year the park also received an international Green Flag Award recognising it as being safe, well-managed, welcoming and having a strong community connection.

3 August 2020

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