Black Stacks need pile of cash

Local home-schooled siblings Brianna and Caleb Arthur have been selected to compete for New Zealand in the World Sport Stacking Championships.

The international cup stacking competition will be held over two days in Butzbach, Germany, next April.

Brianna, 16, and Caleb, 12, were selected for the six-strong New Zealand team from among more than 200 competitors at this year's national sport stacking tournament, which was held in Palmerston North in August.

While the pair are excited about their trip of a lifetime, the hard work involved in raising the $5000 each will need in order to make it to Germany has begun.

Since finding out last month they had been selected for the team, the siblings have been busking and cup stacking at The River Traders' Market each Saturday morning.

Brianna has also sourced some toys and baby products that she intends to sell through a mail drop.

The Arthurs, who live 12 minutes from Marton via Turakina Valley Rd, were introduced to cup stacking in 2009, when fellow home-schooled friends from Rotorua visited in the Christmas holidays and showed them how it was done.

Brianna said they learnt the skill step-by-step, eventually mastering the stacking routine used in competitive sport stacking.

It was then a case of practising, attempting to improve on the time it took to complete the standard cycle stack. The world record is 5.93s.

The Black Stacks' team manager is also from Wanganui. Teacher Karyn Slade has been involved with sport stacking since it was introduced at St Mary's School two years ago.

The others in the team are all school pupils from the Wellington region.

Sponsors

Any potential sponsors can contact Speed Stacks (NZ) 06 326-9535 or Richard Lloyd 021 737 806