Families urged to connect with fun day

Monday, 13 June 2011, 1:52 pm
Press Release: YMCA

13 June 2011
MEDIA RELEASE

Families urged to connect with fun day

Hawke’s Bay families are invited to a 167th birthday party!

Basketball, archery, face painting, family portrait drawing, and food will all be on offer on Sunday 19 June as part of a free Family Connect Day being hosted by YMCA Hawke’s Bay.

The family-focused day being held at the Hastings Sports Centre in Railway Road from noon to 3pm, is to celebrate the birth of the YMCA organisation in London in 1844.

“We wanted to create an event that brought families together and as YMCA is said to have invented basketball, we will be making up teams from family groups that come along,” says Martyn Sinkinson, YMCA Hawke’s Bay newly appointed recreation officer.

A host of family passes to local attractions will be prizes for the fun competitions including self family portraits drawn on the day.

Locally, YMCA started in Napier in 1890 and in Hastings in 1910. Although in recess for some of the time since, the current organisation was formed in 1994 from a merger of the Napier and Hastings organisations. Ironically, the Hastings District Council-owned Sports Centre, the site of Sunday’s celebrations, was built by Hastings YMCA in 1960.

Internationally, the YMCA is also credited with inventing volleyball and body building. It is claimed that the idea of camps and camping is said to have originated with the YMCA, as did the concept of ‘Fathers Day’.
ENDS

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