If ever there was a sign the future of the Whakarewarewa Rugby Community Sports Club will be okay, it was found among the charred remains of the destroyed building.
Almost everything went up in smoke when the building caught fire early Tuesday morning. But not hundreds of junior red and black rugby uniforms that were kept in plastic containers inside a small room.
For club president Marty Hatu, that says it all.
“I called that ‘divine intervention’. Our whānau always look after our kids and now our kids have been looked after. It was a sign.”
Hatu said he couldn’t explain why those uniforms and their kit bags weren’t damaged, as everything else in the room was destroyed.
It affirms Hatu’s positive outlook as he makes a promise to himself, the club and the community, that Whakarewarewa’s club will be back bigger and stronger than before.
He said the loss of the taonga, trophies and photographs was devastating, but the club now had an opportunity to move forward and rebuild a club fit for purpose and the future.
Being displaced was nothing new for Whakarewarewa members and their descendants, he said.
“It is embedded in our whakapapa - 139 years ago our iwi faced devastation with the eruption of Mt Tarawera. We survived and relocated to our village at Whakarewarewa. We built a sports club there [on Froude St] in the 1950s and we had to move again because it became condemned with geothermal activity.”
Hatu said the club didn’t necessarily need to find a new base while the new club was rebuilt, but everything was up for discussion and consultation.
He said there had been offers to put temporary rooms or buildings at the fields, which he said could work while the demolition and building work was carried out.
He said the safety of the club members would be paramount but there were options.
He said there had already been a massive community response, including donation offers and offers of a new home.
There was a lot of work yet to be done, including the insurance paperwork and rebuilding investigation, but he and his committee were starting now to ensure everything could be done as swiftly as possible.
While timeframes couldn’t be known yet, he said he doubted it could be within a year.
“But you just don’t know, a new KFC can be built in three months.”
In the meantime, he urged community members to sort through any club memorabilia or photographs they might have and get them scanned and digitised for when the committee called for them.
In just under two weeks, the club is set to host the Puarenga Festival - a sevens and netball sports festival.
Hatu said it was his hope the event could still go ahead - with the help of generators and gazebos.
He said the same was hoped for a junior rugby and netball festival it was hosting in association with Rotorua Pacific Island Sports on December 6.
“We are putting up temporary fencing around the club to make sure it’s safe for people and it’s my hope we will go ahead. We still have a kaupapa and a commitment to deliver these events and we want the community and the kids to know that we are still here.”
Hatu said more details about those events would be released in the coming days.
Hatu said the presence of hundreds of people on Tuesday evening for a karakia was a sign that people were right behind the club.
“There were people there I haven’t seen in years, some wearing the old red and black merch. Some were holding photographs of their loved ones who had passed who were club members.”
He said he was now championing a message of positivity despite the loss.
“The message I am giving our people is that ‘yes, go and have your cry but just know tomorrow we need to start the new chapter’.”
Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.