Cimino 2 February 2008
Mahurangi Regatta Held annually on the Saturday of Auckland Anniversary weekend
An email from the
Weiti Boating Club nicely summarised the sea change:
Weiti Boating Club is racing to Mahurangi tonight and we plan to have our club barbeque and prize-giving ashore on Saturday evening at Scotts Landing, as we have done in past years.
We realise that your major funding for the evening event is in the sale of food and dinks, but as a club we feel we also need to provide for our members the use of a barbeque for those that like to cook their own tucker.
In view of the fact that we enjoy the events of the day and evening, the Weiti Boating Club Inc would like to make a token donation of $100.00 towards the cost of the event.
We will bring a cheque with us and find some person that looks official to give this to. If you see our club banner strung up, please come and make yourself known to us.
The 2007 prize-giving and dance had been a minor financial disaster. Just when it seemed that the message—that the
cash bar and burgers fund the marquee and swing band—was getting out, bar sales in particular bombed.
In the cold light of the morning after cleanup, the brands of beer and ‘foreign’ wine labels spoke volumes—it was clear that many saw the format as BYO.
The organiser,
Friends of the Mahurangi, surmising that New Zealanders’ rapid embrace of the cashless society had also played a part, resolved to have eftpos facilities in place in 2008, where it accounted for a handy 12% of the takings. That ratio is bound jump, come 2009, as the ‘take your picnic to the regatta but only your plastic to the prize-giving and dance’ message spreads.
The 2004 Mahurangi Regatta Ball was inspired by the prize-giving and dance that was part of the regatta at the time it lapsed, during World War Two.
The ball was memorable and the majority, on the night, expressed the desire that it be an annual event. But it was a high risk affair, as was underlined later that year when Rotary International’s hugely successful annual fundraiser at Kawau Island was put out of business, by one ruinous weather event.
The prospects of a follow up received a fillip when Auckland Regional Council requested a regatta after match function to launch the Mahurangi Action Plan. Friends of the Mahurangi suggested the traditional prize-giving and dance format as ripe for revival.
That year the regional council picked up the costs of the marquee and band and the following year, Rodney District Council covered the cost of the marquee.
But with bar sales down in 2007, the notion that the event was close to being self-funding was more than a little previous.
With the generous underwriting provided, the support of
Ransom Wines,
Ti Point Vineyard and
McEntee Hire Warkworth, and the patronage of the bar and burgers restored, as symbolised by the ‘token donation’ of the thoughtful Weiti Boating Club, the setback of 2007 can be left astern—a squall weathered, requiring some running repairs but leaving no lasting damage.
Aside from being the group responsible for
reviving the Mahurangi Regatta, Friends of the Mahurangi is committed to the event long-term because of its power to build the community, local and extended—some of our best friends are Aucklanders!—that the Mahurangi needs to care for the harbour.
There is determination to build on this year’s success, but also to make 2009 a major fund-raiser for the operation of the
Jane Gifford—flagship of the restoration of the Mahurangi. The trick will be to achieve this without messing with the relaxed and inclusive format that is the essence of the Mahurangi Regatta.
Settling In: The crowd comfortably awaiting the prize-giving, bathed in the rich hues of the setting sun and the 18-piece Prohibition Big Band. Photographer Sarah Ransom