N.Z. Games village will be in experienced hands

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33741, 14 January 1975, Page 2

N.Z. Games village will be in experienced hands

It was back to familiar surroundings yesterday for Mr Arch Withington, whose permanent work is managing Bellamy’s.

This time a year ago Mr Withington, on loan from the Tourist Hotel Corporation, was busily overseeing the transformation of the Ham university campus into the village for the Commonwealth Games. Yesterday he returned to the site — or more precisely, the headquarters building in the Ham school — to prepare the village for teams attending next week’s New Zealand Games. For the Commonwealth Games, Mr Withington was the village executive officer. For more than a year he worked full-time on the operational plan. This time he is doubling as executive officer and village commandant, the person who attends to the day-to-day running of the village. NUMBERS DOWN Mr Withington, who will be assisted by his wife, sees the running of the New Zealand Games village as a very different proposition from the far more complex village which housed the Commonwealth Games competitors. “There were more than 1600 people to worry about last time; this time there won’t be any more than 450 and its for a much shorter period. It should be a far simpler operation,” he said. Mr Withington said the village was all set to take the first arrivals on Thursday and the only possible difficulty he foresaw was communication with the nonEnglish speaking teams. However, he hoped that there would be an English speaking person attached to each team. If not. interpreters would be readily available. The New Zealand Games village will look very different from the one which closed off part of Ham Road last year. The only accommodation blocks being used are

the university halls of residence in Maidstone Road and the church-owned Rochester and Rutherford Halls in Ilam Road. Whereas last time all meals were served in the Students’ Union building,

which was the nerve centre of the village’s social life, this time the meals will be served in the dining rooms attached to the accommodation blocks. Only the Post Office and the shops in the union building will be used by the teams. Another change from the Commonwealth Games is that a different catering firm — Ken Goodman Catering Company, Ltd, instead of Burke’s Caterers, Ltd — has been engaged, although the menus will be largely the same, with steak three times a day for those who want it. The biggest apparent difference will be in security. Whereas the Commonwealth Games village was akin to a sealed fortress, there will be no wire fences, barricades or rigid pass-systems this time. But a security firm has been retained to ensure that the visiting teams are not pestered. '