Happy centenary, Canterbury WEA!

One of Canterbury’s most popular voluntary organisations, the Canterbury WEA, turns 100 this year, and celebrations are most definitely in order!

The CWEA, or, if we want to be formal, the Canterbury Workers’ Educational Association, was the first WEA to be set up in New Zealand. Like the English WEA, which was founded in 1903, the CWEA aimed to provide university level education to working men and women.

In the subsequent century, many changes have, not surprisingly, taken place; however the CWEA remains the ‘People’s University’. Offering as it does some 130 courses each year as well as hosting special interest clubs, such as mah-jong, bridge, and sketching, the WEA has been and continues to be a part of life for many Cantabrians.

The centenary celebrations are therefore guaranteed to be popular – make sure to contact the Association as soon as possible to avoid missing out.

Scheduled events:

• Wednesday 4 March, 6pm: launch of The People’s University: A Centennial History of the CWEA by Ian Dougherty, published by Canterbury University Press. The book will be officially launched by Mayor Lianne Dalziel at the WEA. Numbers are limited so please let the Association know if you’d like to receive an invitation to this event.
• Thursday 5 March, 7 – 9 pm: Community Night with presentations from groups that use the CWEA rooms. All are welcome.
• Friday 6 March, 12 – 2pm: shared lunch and items from CWEA classes. All are welcome.
• Saturday 7 March: 6.30 pm: dinner at Hagley Community College, BYO. Cost $35. After dinner Speaker: Garry Moore. Numbers limited to 100 so early booking is advised.

To let the CWEA know that you’d like to attend any of these events, you can

• phone the WEA on 366 0285;
• email admin@cwea.org.nz; or
• print out the registration form on the WEA website and deliver it to the WEA at 59 Gloucester Street.

Tales from a bicycle seat

Triathlon cycling must be the second of the three Shakespeare witches – gnarled, ugly and capable of doing wicked things to your legs. Perhaps it’s because I feel like one of those ladies when I get off the bike – drooling, hunched, and capable of nothing faster than a painful shuffle.

The cycle leg in a triathlon comes after the swim, and before the run, so it serves as a sort of no-mans land, where you try to drink and eat as much as you can to set you up for the last bit, the run. The fact that you have to be able to do this at 30 km an hour while dodging other cyclists, abandoned water bottles and spectators’ dogs just adds another layer of entertainment. Despite this, I quite enjoy the cycle – I mean, you get to sit down, how good is that? Getting sufficiently fit for such a thing – and the event I’m aiming for, a half-ironman, has a 90km cycle – takes a little while. I confess to being a nervous bicycle rider these days, so a fair amount of training time happens on the stationary trainer in the garden shed, just so I don’t have to deal with disintegrating roads and jostle with Christchurch motorists. Strange then, I used to fearlessly cycle around London as a younger man, but maybe this is wisdom coming from my advancing years.

If you’re on a similar journey to my own, I would point you towards two books mentioned in an earlier blog, Triathlon Science by Joe Friel, and Triathlon For Masters And Beyond by Ian Stokell. They both have good sections devoted to cycling fitness; there are other titles as well that cover much the same ground. As an – ahem – older person, I have to say that stretching is also an important thing, for me anyway. I find that I don’t need to stretch before I start exercising – people, I exercise slow! But if I don’t stretch afterwards, on the following day I feel like I’ve run a marathon. If you find you have the same issues, I can recommend a read of Anatomy, Stretching and Training for Cyclists, edited by Lisa Purcell, and also The Complete Guide to Stretching by Christopher Norris. No doubt a yoga class would help, if only I had the time.

If you need some general reading around cycling and how to do it better, the library provides access to a range of magazines about cycling specific magazines in print and electronic form. You’ll need a valid library card and a password/PIN to access the electronic ones.  You can also find more cycling resources on our cycling page.

For more about Colin’s triathlon endeavours and some reading suggestions, check out our other triathlon blog posts.

Ten mile championship of New Zealand, File Reference CCL PhotoCD 1, IMG0057

Te Kupu o te Wiki – The Word of the Week

Kia ora. To celebrate Te Reo Māori we are publishing kupu (words).

Kīwaha (colloquialism)

Koia, koia!
That’s it!

Kupu (word)

pirihimana
police officer

He pirihimana te papa o Hone.
Hone’s Dad is a policeman.

• Browse our Te Reo Māori resources.
• Previous Te Kupu o te reo Māori posts.

Christchurch – this week in history (February 23 to March 1)

Mrs Hucks’ Theatre Royal Café
CCL PhotoCD 16, IMG0090

February 24, 1881
First century in first class cricket scored by G. Watson for Canterbury.

February 25, 1908
Theatre Royal opens. This is the building which exists today, the third to bear the name.

February 25, 1978
New Brighton Mall opens.

February 26, 1931
Bowker Fountain in Victoria Square in operation.

February 26, 1938
Summit Road opens.

February 26, 1947
First ticketed airline flight from New Zealand – Lancastrian “City of London” flies from Harewood to Sydney.

February 27, 1964
Lyttelton road tunnel opens, New Zealand’s longest.

February 28, 1853
Provincial boundary defined by proclamation. Westland (then called West Canterbury) included as part of Canterbury.

March 1, 1851
“Isabella Hercus” arrives with settlers.

March 1, 1880
School for the Deaf (now Van Asch College) opens in Sumner. Director Gerrit van Asch introduced oral teaching methods to New Zealand.

March 1, 1930
Majestic Theatre opens – the city’s first steel frame building.

A general view of Victoria Square, Christchurch
CCL PhotoCD 8, IMG0097

A timeline of Christchurch events in chronological order from pre-European times to 1989.