OFFICIAL OPENING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27514, 7 October 1950, Page 4

OFFICIAL OPENING

Oamaru RSA Bowling Green “ LABOUR OF LOVE ” “ It is with some degree of pride and with a great deal of pleasure that the members of the Oamaru RSA Bowling Club look forward to the official opening of their new bowling green this afternoon. 1 ' This was stated by the president of the club. Mr J. C. Kirkness, in an interview with the Daily Times yesterday. " To the team of workers it has been a labour of love extending over almost three years, from November 18, 1947, when Messrs Taylor's bulldozer cleared and levelled the site." , ' After this, much good work was done by the staff of the Waitaki County Council and its full plant, Mr Kirkness said. Then began the laborious work of building up the green, layer by layer, and barrow load by barrow load, until today there was a well-prepared green, the playing qualities of which would be tested by players from far and near that afternoon. “ The effort is a fine community one, and it would be almost impossible to enumerate all those who have, in one way and another, contributed to the successful completion,” IVIr .Kirkness said, “ but members of the club extend sincere thanks to everyone who has in any way helped. “ There is no doubt about the flue spirit of co-operation which has existed right from the turning of the first sod to the present time.” The green was the centre of a wider community effort on a conspicuous site in the heart of the borough, Mr Kirkenss said. Members of the Bowling Club looked forward with pleasure to the completion of the RSA Clubrooms now in the course of construction, tfte planting and building of the beautifully-designed Garden of Memories, with its shrine and memorial gates, and the laying out of the surrounding grounds in keeping with the three major projects in hand. ” When completed, the whole of the area will constitute a grand memorial to those citizens of North Otago who served King and country,” he said. "It is a combination of something useful and something beautiful which, in due course, having served the requirements of those who have served their King and country, will revert to the municipality and to the citizens themselves as a worth-while asset.”