Athletics club’s 50th anniversary reunion
Takaka Amateur Athletics club’s 50th anniversary reunion. Photo: Maria Polglase
Sue Netto enjoyed Takaka Amateur Athletics club’s 50th anniversary reunion from a special perspective; she has an unusual number of connections to both the history and the future of the club.
Present last weekend were three generations of Sue’s family. Her sister Jane Baird attended, and their brother Brian Jacobsen helped with the organisation. Also there were Brian’s son Mathew, Sue’s daughter Kylie Harvey, and Kylie’s children, Reece, Caleb and Kayla. Brian’s daughter Sarah-Jane Brown and grandson Saxon Balck have also had involvement with the club.
Perhaps not as obvious was the presence of the generations that came before Sue: the name of her father Ted Jacobsen appears on the display boards for, among other things, serving on the club committee, and in one of the glass display cases sits a small sepia photograph of Sue’s grandfather, Alexander Robbie, on a bike. The club’s forerunner (between 1870 and 1960) was an athletic and cycling club, and the Motupipi-born Alexander was a medal-winning record-holder for the Collingwood to Nelson race.
Life member Brian Jacobsen, a one-time champion cyclist, long-distance runner, long-time committee member and past president, reportedly spent about three months preparing the display boards featuring photographs, club results and newspaper clippings going back for decades, said Murray Rogers, one of the organising committee.
Both children and adults ran relays in the afternoon, some using the club’s new run, jump and throw equipment, followed by the cutting of the custom-decorated cake by the club’s oldest member, Cyril Chamberlain, hand-in-hand with its youngest member, Xavier Reynish.
The day’s highlight was the presence of special guest Toni Hodgkinson, a Takaka club athlete and middle-distance runner who, in the 1990s, represented New Zealand at two Commonwealth Games, three World Championships and two Olympic Games. She still holds the New Zealand 800m women’s record.
“It’s lovely to come back here as an adult,” she said in appreciation of the welcome she received. She issued junior members with achievement certificates and presented film footage of her Olympic heats, semi-finals and finals, providing valuable commentary for members on the background, experiences and strategies, and on some of the rougher realities of competitive athletics.
Today the club has 80 young members aged between five and 14, some of whom are now regional record-holders. Another recent member, Courtney Clark, recently placed second at discus in a national competition.
Many of the Bay’s past and present athletes were in attendance. In 1961, at the formation of the athletic club that continues today, the clubhouse keys were brought from Nelson by runners, among them Garth Prince, who joined Saturday’s celebrations.
Many attending confessed to being quite moved by the reminiscences of the day. Memories were shared by several, like Pat Timings, Joan Richards and Cliff Turley, a club participant in his youth, and whose anecdotes—dating back to 1946—got everybody laughing.
“It was really great to hear some of the old-timers’ stories and hear how significant things were for them,” said Murray.
Maria Polglase
