A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the ASB Leisure Centre at Kensington Park, describing the facilities and the activities that occur there on a regular basis.

Table Tennis Northland quite rightly pointed out that I had not mentioned their facilities and activities – and although the Northland Table Tennis Centre is not strictly part of the ASB Leisure Centre, it is semi-attached to the building on the north end and certainly caters for a lot of people through various regular and one-off table tennis activities.

And it was great to see Table Tennis Northland put on a fantastic event during the extended Easter weekend – hosting the 2015 NZ Veterans Table Tennis Championships was a big effort indeed, and by all accounts it was a very successful event which brought in hundreds of people to the city, including many from overseas.

Utilising the ASB Stadium, the event started with a test match between NZ and Australia and then featured 12 hours of table tennis per day over the weekend for the players; all aged over 40 years, with some over 80.

This just goes to show what most people in Northland sport already know - that we can host (and should host more) top events in Northland. This event was run by a dedicated and committed group of volunteers, but ticked all the boxes for a top class event. And the economic benefit for Whangarei (and possibly the wider Northland region) would have been significant.

But that wasn’t the only national event in Whangarei over the long weekend – also running was the 2015 ActivePost Long Distance Waka Ama Nationals based from the Marsden Cove Marina at Ruakaka.

This event was even bigger, bringing literally thousands of competitors and supporters to the north for a weekend of open water racing. The champs were again run by a group of volunteers – the Tai Tokerau Polynesian Canoe Association, who are the Northland regional sports organisation for the sport of waka ama. Again this event was extremely successful and again demonstrated the level of event management in Northland is very good.

So a big congratulations to both table tennis and waka ama on two fantastic national events that not only show-cased the best that Northland has to offer (including the brilliant weather right throughout Easter!), but also contributed a massive economic benefit to the Whangarei district, including direct benefit to motels, hotels, restaurants, supermarkets, dairies, petrol stations etc - the list goes on.

Take a bow Table Tennis Northland and Tai Tokerau Polynesian Canoe Association!