A few days ago, we posted a Guest Buzzmaker by a citizen who is also active in local club tennis. He has serious reservations about the sports park.
Today, BayBuzz was enormously flattered to see that the national tennis officialdom in Auckland is spontaneously and assiduously reading our modest teeny local blog. They posted a rejoinder to our Buzzmaker (you can read it immediately following the pertinent Guest Buzzmaker column).
WOW, we thought. We’ve really made the big time. Top brass in Auckland are reading BayBuzz. No doubt everyone in the Beehive too. Probably even the Vatican.
Yeah right!
Far more likely: Lawrence or Sam didn’t like what our local tennis player had to say … someone called up the national honchos (straight past the regional tennis leadership to the very top … WOW again), and asked for a big serve. Ace our local nuisance clubbie.
What Lawrence and Sam don’t get, is that this is the whole problem with their so-called consultation process. Over and over, there seems to be a mismatch between what the top brass in Auckland (or wherever) have to say, assuming it’s reported accurately, and the views of volunteer sports enthusiasts here on the ground.
The CEO of Tennis NZ helpfully tells us how it works in big cities like Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Wellington and Christchurch with huge pools of tennis players. How relevant is that?
Lawrence and Kelt Capital talk to Auckland and national sports code chiefs (whose job it is to salivate over new facilities) … and we talk to locals.
Who would you like to tell you how to spend your ratepayer dollars on sport? Sports bureaucrats in Auckland? Or committed volunteers here in Hawke’s Bay?
For BayBuzz, it’s an easy call. Go with the locals.
Tom