Parking woes net school fundraising opportunity

A North Shore school is fundraising for a new netball court by charging users of a nearby sports venue to park on school grounds.

Takapuna Normal Intermediate School (TNIS) acting principal Lorene Hurd said the arrangement with Netball North Harbour would help the school’s cause.

Mrs Hurd said the school netball courts had been needing a revamp for a long time.

“We’ve got cracking and uneven surfaces, and as you can imagine, our poor students trying to run on an uneven surface is not very pleasant,” she said.

Netball North Harbour’s car park was obstructed by construction until this month so TNIS offered five netball court-sized car parks, charging users $2 a space.

“The parents have all volunteered and put their hands up and they’re taking turns to work at the court, to take the money – wear their little fluoro vests and help the cars get parked and lock it up at the end of each night,” said Mrs Hurd.

The chairperson of the school’s board of trustees Carolyn Foster said a fundraising target had not been set.

“We have no goal in mind - we are just trying to raise as much as we can. Any little bit helps,”

Netball North Harbour chief executive Lynette Brady said the parking at the school was a short walking distance from the courts.

Mrs Brady said the Netball Harbour team had been proactive by offering a solution on their parking problem.“Parking is always an issue for us,” she said.

Mrs Brady said they had advised netball members to make use of the parking offered by the school to help them with their fundraising.