Bloke

Get the spelling right TAB. It's Jaffa! Just a further F----- Aucklander

Mate I do not follow rugby. Besides in Wellington, Football has been the dominate sport for many years and Football is now NZs largest team sport in terms of participation The Wellington Men's Rugby Team has to play their games at Porirua Park in front of maybe 100 spectators. The Hurricanes and the Wellington Rugby Union have major financial issues and with any luck they will fold.

Well, they did not help themselves by having a lamb as a mascot for a Rugby Team and calling their Basketball team The Rams. I also must give TAB some credit, usually anyone who comes from Christchurch is normally a pain in the arse parochial. Not only that he has turned Jaffa.

I do not agree with your comments that the Awapuni cock ups were beyond the prediction of most investors. Firstly, they had no experience with property development so should have sought advice. For the sale of the Awapuni land it was simple. They should have firstly subdivided, then sold the sections and finally built the conference centre. That way they would have removed the risk So far as Club Management goes, Race has been a chapter of incredible cock ups. Just look at recent years. They bought the land at Sherrif's Road Awapuni for $1.6M as they though it would be good for stables. Only problem was that once again they did not do their due diligence as there was a stream around the land with a bridge which they thought gave them access. But it didn't so the last I heard was that the land was back on the market for offers of near $1M. They started a Cafe at Trentham which has cost a fortune to set up and for the first 8 or months of operation lost around $70k. Then we find the CEO's brother in-law is the chef. Once again poor research as there is an excellent Cafe across the railway line which attracts the foot traffic. ]

Race's problem goes back to "The Awapuni Debacle" when they built a conference centre / grandstand without any money. The plan was to subdivide residential land at Awapuni, sell sections and then build the new centre. However, they decided to build before they sold the land and the $9M cost was funded by the Bank with the debt to be repaid from section sales. The building was completed just as the GFC hit and they could not find buyers for the sections. When they did sell a section well below expected price the proceeds were used to only repay interest to The Bank. So, Trentham has been sold off to repay interest and principal as well as to cover the many other blunders made by so called experts. The other issue they have is that each club has two directors on the board but some of the clubs are so small in terms of membership that it would be incredibly hard to find two members with the expertise to sit as directors. For example, Marton has about 20 members plus the committee. Rangitikei and Feilding are not much better.

Maybe but I don't fancy their chances be of surviving financially given Race's appalling history.

At the last AGM, Masterton members showed common sense and rejected a proposal to join Race. Some misguided fool in the club moved the motion. That is the only reason I can think of to give them an award.

I stand to be corrected but I think you stated that you were a former Christs student. Also, your hometown of Christchurch wasn't any better prior to the earthquakes. I took my youngest down in 2009 when she started at Canterbury Uni and at the initiation, they warned the students not to go into town at night. The central city was filthy, and I went for a coffee just off the square in what appeared to be a reasonable Cafe and then a fight started up between two women and they rolled around on the floor for some time before it was broken up. I was there a few weeks ago and they have done a great job rebuilding the city. Shame that it needed an earthquake though.

Well according to Sam Neil, students at Christs College were the same as you describe above

You forgot to mention your old school, Christs College!

It's simple Football has taken over in both Wellington and Auckland and it is the dominate sport by a country mile. Rugby should be Club based as Football is. Top Footballers are not playing for first Eleven because the standard is poor, and Rugby needs to follow. There are many Colleges that cannot field a Rugby team and if they can many do not have the coaches with the expertise. There still are the "Try Hard" colleges that want to win trophies and poach kids from other schools and encourage some to stay in school when they're 19 just to win trophies. What amazes me is that Wellington has won the NPC for two of the last three years and the game is so small in Wellington.

Rugby league is so small in terms of participation it can hardly be used as any example. There are many towns that cannot field a team and in Wellington there is a total of 16 senior Rugby league teams. That is about the same as a medium sized Football club in Wellington Rugby is all but dying in Auckland and Wellington and they are still operating an NPC which attracts only a handful of spectators in most provinces, and it is costing a fortune. Their model is totally screwed.

Was he not the CEO at Hastings when they spent $7M on two blocks of land only to find later that they had not done due diligence as the land was zoned for Horticulture / Viticulture, not a racetrack?

Brings back bad memories of the Terrible Trio. Allen, Glenda Hughes and Nathan Guy. None of them knew anything about racing and they were running the show. The classic was Guy when Mike Pitman told him that Christchurch needed an all-weather track and Guy's reply was that they already had an all-weather track, Addington

If you wish to view the financial Accounts of a particular Club, just go online to The Companies Office and look under Incorporated Societies, which almost all Racing Clubs are and then type in the name of the Club.