Voluntary Labour Built School Pool

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31234, 5 December 1966, Page 18

Voluntary Labour Built School Pool

The gala opening of the Christchurch Seventh-Day Adventist Central School’s new swimming pool yesterday was the climax to two years’ effort by parents, pupils, staff and friends. Built entirely by voluntary labour, the pool is 75ft long and 30ft wide, and ranges in depth from 2ft Bin to 4ft 6in. It was officially opened by Mr H. J. Walker, M.P., who gave has opening speech wearing swimming shorts, and then dived in and swam a length. A feature of the pool is a solar weir on one side, where overlapping water is heated by the sun and then pumped back into the pool through the filtration and chlorination plant. The process is claimed to raise the temperature of the pool by about 10 degrees. An extra large solar wear—loft wide, Instead of the usual 2ft or so—is being used as ah experiment. Materials for the project cost £l6OO. From late in 1964, a team of about 30 men gave up their week-ends and holidays to build the pool, dress-ing-sheds, paths and fences, plus the building in which they installed and linked up the filtration plant. An 86ft artesian bore was sunk to

provide a private water supply. Pupils of the school raised £7B for the project last year, and a further £BO this year. During the morning before the opening ceremony, a large crowd watched displays by the Irish Society Pipe Band, a marching girls* team and members of a judo club, and in the afternoon they took part in a picnic sports meeting. A special atitraction for the children was a water scooter, on which they were given rides around the pool.