Parks Week: Get into it

Hastings District Council is encouraging residents to make a special effort to get into a park this week.

Parks Week (March 4 to 12) is managed by the New Zealand Recreation Association (NZRA) and Parks and Leisure Australia and is designed to help councils raise awareness of public spaces.

In Hastings there are events happening in parks over the week, including International Cultures Day at Cornwall Park (March 4), petanque at Frimley Park (March 4, 8 and 11), and Qigong – Give it a Go (March 8).

‘Magical Parks’ are also a big part of Parks Week, with four set up across the district, in Frimley Park, Flaxmere Park, Puketapu Park and Havelock North Village Green. They will be in place for a fortnight. The game is played on a hand-held device, aimed at 6 to 11 year olds.

First introduced to Hastings in December, in Frimley Park, the Magical Park app turns a normal urban city park into a digital fantasy land playground. Using a mobile device and the free Magical Park app, spaces in parks or playgrounds are transformed into an exciting and engaging world for kids and families to explore, creating a blended virtual world seen through the app once they enter the boundaries of the magical park. The best option for downloading the Magical Park app is to connect to wifi – if children don’t have access to that at home they can head to the Flaxmere, Hastings or Havelock North libraries where they can connect for free. Once it is downloaded, the amount of data the games use is very low and only used to find the player's position on Google Maps. The app is compatible with most modern hand-held devices.

In Hastings there are 46 playgrounds with 210 pieces of play equipment as well as 251 parks and reserves spread over more than 600 hectares.

To find out what’s happening in them, follow Hastings District Council’s Facebook page where Council will also be showcasing a park a day.

ENDS

4 October 2017

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