With a community library built in its grounds off the radar, Ashburton College principal Ross Preece. Photo supplied.Ashburton College’s new library project will now go back in the mix with as part of a replacement project of a number of the school’s buildings, says principal Ross Preece.

A late bid was made to have the college reconsidered as a site for the district’s new library, but the option proved unsuitable when it was assessed by Opus Architecture. That option might be out of the mix, but the need to replace the school’s library remained, he said.

The Ministry of Education and the school board agreed the future of the school’s buildings needed to be addressed, based on three factors – the suitability of the S68 buildings for today’s learning environment, the college’s predicted roll growth and the fact that some of the buildings were leaking, Preece said. “They are now in the process of putting together a business plan for upgrading our school as a whole. I’m calling them weekly to see where the plan is in the pipeline and they’ve told me, within six months – the wheels of the ministry’s property grind very slowly.”

The business plan would be stage one in the building replacement process and progress would depend on the money that was made available, he said.

“It’s a bit of a catch 22. We’ve got buildings that are in less than perfect condition but if you know you’re likely to get new buildings in 18 months you go light on maintenance but if it’s 2020 then we’d have to do some maintenance, but maintenance can become dead money,” he said.

Having a time frame for building replacement was critical, Preece said.

The college planned to build a state of the art toilet block but its location would depend on the business plan. Once the business plan was in place then funding streams and timelines could be established.

The college was one of the first schools in New Zealand to be built on the S68 design but modern learning needs were way out of step with those buildings, Preece said.

The school would have some input into building replacement priority but would see the library as the hub of the school, he said.

“Land is quite tight for us and part of the plan might be that we look at a whole lot of pre-fabs on the netball court while they knock some of the S68s over and start the rebuild.”

A similar rebuild has been undertaken at Kaiapoi High school.

‘This is exciting for our community and I’ll continue to keep the pressure on but it will be an exercise in patience.”

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 10 April 2017

Rising comedy star Georgie Sivier takes out South Island RAW win. Photo Ashburton GuardianAshburton’s own Georgie Sivier has confirmed herself as a rising star of the stand-up comedy world after winning a high profile competition.

The South Island RAW Comedy Quest was on Sunday, where Sivier went up against six fellow finalists from throughout the region.

“It surprised me, I didn’t expect to get anywhere with it because I have only been doing stand up for seven months,” the Ashburton Big Little Theatre Company tutor said.

She said her stand-up act is a “bit peculiar” due to the fact she wore a shark costume, which had ping pong balls for eyes.

Her grandmother made it for a private family joke, out of a car seat cover.

“My grandmother is mortified because she thinks everyone will think she’s a really bad seamstress,” Sivier said.

A former student of Big Little, Sivier is now based in Christchurch as she makes a name for herself in the world of theatre, television and comedy.

She has established the Playspace Theatre Company which has been producing a number of shows, and will soon take the two-person play Her to the Nelson Fringe Festival.

Sivier is in the play with fellow Christchurch comedian Justin White, who won the Christchurch-based Comedian Award for 2016.

Her South Island RAW performance led to her being signed with standup comedy agency Grandpa Figs.

She will now go to the national final in Auckland, where she will be the only South Islander among seven contestants competing.

“It’s terrifying,” Sivier said.

By Susan Sandys © The Ashburton Guardian - 5 April 2017

A last-minute bid to build Ashburton’s new public library at Ashburton College is likely to be canned tomorrow by Ashburton’s district councillors.

Last month the majority, including mayor Donna Favel voted to overturn a decision made by councillors in the previous term to build the library and civic centre on one site.

Sites in the mix were Baring Square east, Eastfield and the current civic centre site in Baring Square west for a co-build of the library and civic centre.

The college site had earlier been discounted as an option for the library but the new team of councillors wanted consultants Opus Architecture to investigate the dual site option again.

It found there was little to be gained by splitting the sites and that the college library option came with some significant disadvantages.

Reports from Opus and from council staff will be discussed at tomorrow’s council meeting and they include the recommendation that “council ceases any further exploration with the Ashburton College and Ministry of Education on the option of siting the new council library on the Ashburton College site and that the Administration & Library Facilities Project Control Group be convened to review the status and progress of the site selection process and report back to council”.

The college option was thrown back into the mix at the request of the college’s new principal Ross Preece when he spoke during the public forum at the February council meeting.

As well as the community needing a new library so too did the college.

Building one facility that met the needs of the school and the community made sense, he said.

He told councillors that the college had several million dollars in available funding and could look at using some of this to assist the building of the new library as a joint facility.

The demolition of the community pool has provided an available land area of approximately 2700m2 where the new library building could be sited.

The proposal was for the library to be based on the Riccarton Library model in Christchurch and the college’s expectation was that the facility would be owned and operated by the council on land owned by the college/Ministry of Education.

In its report Opus said that there were no funding guarantees from the ministry; the only indication of support was the provision of the land on a lease basis.

The college itself indicated that it could possibly provide funding up to $500,000.

Opus found that the college option did not deliver a financial benefit for the community because the shared facility would need to be larger and therefore more expensive than a co-build.

Reaching agreement with the ministry would also involve protracted negotiations that could delay the project.

And those findings led Opus to recommend that the council proceed no further with the college site option and that the project group reconvened to review the status and progress of the current site selection.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 5 April 2017