April 2009 newsletter

• Committee news
• Trip to Sydney
• Levin Great Forest Marathon
• Tutira Tramp
• A First At Seventy
• Another New Plymouth Notch on the Belt
• Cycling to Te Mata Cheese
• Another Eye Deal Half Marathon
• On a Sunday morning
• A Smile

From your Editor (by Gerard van de Ven)

Welcome to the first edition of 2009. It has been a while since our last newsletter, for which your editor is totally to blame. With me going on holiday in November / December last year, you missed out on the December issue of the Newsletter. Not many people actually said something about that. It must be the New Zealand culture of politeness (I hope), and not because you don’t really care. In the Netherlands people would have been all over me probably.

One of the things that missed out on being published is Malcolm story about the trip to Sydney of a whole group of the Napier Branch to do the Sydney (half) marathon. Even though that is now a while ago, I thought it was such a good story that it was well worthwhile publishing, even now. I hope Malcolm will forgive me for taking so long to get it out there.

I would very much like to thank my new co-editor Mike Sheely (and his wife Sue). Mike has been a great ‘chaser-upper” of stories and Sue has done a lot of the formatting of the text and getting it all to you in an enjoyable form.
Mike has in fact been so successful that we have a large amount of stories in this issue. I have been emailed stories from all over the place. Mike may not have been behind all of them. Thanks to all you writers and those that motivated others to write. It is really great to see so many contributions coming in.

We have all sorts of stories, a lot of running and walking of course, but Run Walk Hawke’s Bay has also ventured into cycling (do we see a new branch of the club coming up here?) and tramping has been a social activity for a while. Everything to keep us active and fit and have a good time at the same time is what our members are interested in and you can see it in this issue of the newsletter.

The Hastings Half Marathon has a significant presence. Although I personally was unable to be there I have had a lot of positive feedback through the “contact us” email on the website. Well done, organisation team! Hopefully you will be rewarded with a few more entries again next year.

Thanks to our sponsors, Eye Deal Opticians, TUMU ITM, Napier City Pak’n Save and the Shoe Clinic. Please support them wherever you can.