Alison Smith Editorial: Being grateful for alert level 2

Like heroes, the team is high fived by many supporters through the fence. Photo / Alison Smith.

COMMENT

The weekend's Thames Valley club rugby finals will go down in history for the way communities backed our local teams despite the restrictions placed on us by a global pandemic.

Watching the joy on the faces of the Red and White team supporters outside the fence at Waihi Athletic on Saturday was gold.

We have to be grateful, because for a while there it looked like we wouldn't get any winter sport at all. Not even surfing.

This week we had sunshine, waves and top notch club rugby on the Coromandel Peninsula.

Grassroots club rugby is alive and kicking here.

Also this week, the Department of Conservation (DoC) marked Conservation Week. Its theme was Healthy Nature, Healthy People, from New Zealand's Covid-19 lockdowns when people slowed down and looked at their lives and the world around them in different and more reflective ways.

Shaun Robinson, Mental Health Foundation chief executive, says lockdowns mean we need to look at nature with new eyes – outside our windows, in our neighbourhoods.

The same goes with our community clubs and facilities, and ways we can keep these going (see the story on Whangamata Pool on page 5). It's not only our natural landscape but our connection with the people in it that helps to heal us when we're distressed.

Have a great weekend everyone, and share your stories with us at alison.smith@nzme.co.nz