Rock Climbing Wall Upgrade
During 2023, the team in the PE and OED department have been looking at a range of options for how we could support both students and members of the community to complete more adventure based activities on a regular basis without a major financial cost being associated with it for participants. We have decided that our major project going into 2024 is upgrading our indoor school rock climbing wall and looking to grow climbing for both MHC students and our community. The upgrades we would like to make include;
- Adding a safety barrier to meet national level safety requirements
- Upgrading anchors to support learning for lead climbing
- New climbing holds for the entire wall
- Volumes being added to the wall to create some alternative climbing challenges
- Purchasing new equipment for borrowing while climbing (e.g. shoes, helmets and harnesses).
For 2024, we have approximately 90 students (Yr10 - Yr13) out of our kuras 550 students on the roll have signalled their intentions to take Outdoor Education. Climbing is becoming an integral part of our program and we are excited to see their progress during the year. When completed and the wall has been signed off with it's certification, this would also allow us to;
- Start a school climbing club, so students who aren't enrolled in our Outdoor Education program could also learn to climb.
- Aim to run a trial in 2024 for members of the community to use the wall in the evenings providing we can have a suitable support structure and operating procedures.
From a numbers perspective, we have been quoted just over $25000 to upgrade the wall and there would be some additional costs for equipment purchases. We are currently being supported by Uprising in Christchurch at a very fair price to do the work after they carried out some initial testing earlier this year. There are some members of the community who have already wished to make a contribution and we currently have a commitment from the college to fund $10,000 towards our target. We will be applying for grants to help make up the shortfall, but we're reaching out via the school newsletter to see if any whanau would have any interest in providing any of the following;
- A financial contribution towards the cost of upgrading the wall
- A letter of support to assist in the grant applications we will be applying for (supporting letters would include things like the benefit to MHC students and the community for if we can obtain this upgrade).
- Any interest in joining a working committee to develop some guidelines/operating procedures for probable community use.
For further information, please contact Mr Coutts via email on [email protected]
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