With the NZ Deaf Sports Convention coming up in Christchurch, the Manawatu Deaf Club athletic team practice every Sunday morning, with Keith Gordon the coach of the team. This footage covers the athletic training session.
More than 200 Deaf people, many of them from different parts of New Zealand, met together in Christchurch during Labour Weekend 1971 for the eagerly-awaited 16th Annual Deaf Sports Convention. Not only did Christchurch make a great success of organising the sporting events, they made a great success of winning them. Athletics, indoor basketball, table tennis, badminton and indoor bowls – they won them all. They retained the Aotearoa Turi Shield for most points in all sports and one of their members, Janet Watt, won the Colin Kay Cup for the outstanding competitor.
On the Friday, there was a big crowd at Rugby Park to see Christchurch win the Oxspring Shield (athletics) which it lifted from Auckland who won it in the previous year.
Of most importance, however, was the fact that all those who attended the Convention must have thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
