Kia ora! Martin smells, and is bad at squash
Welcome to the Thorndon Squash Club collaborative Wiki, where we amass the knowledge that empowers our volunteers to keep our club throbbing and our community thriving!
What is this? What is a Wiki?
Hi, I'm Martin, Thorndon Squash Club Captain of the 2021 season. When I took on this role in 2020, I knew I was only going to be able to do this for a year, before I had to return back home to Germany. I made it my calling to extract as much information as I could from Nicole, the previous club captain, and long-standing members of the club, such as Brad, and cater the role more towards a team effort. Nicole had already floated the idea of a "subcommittee", i.e. distributing tasks across multiple people, and I promised I would document as much as possible to pass on to my successors, and this is the platform where all this information is collected.
This platform is a Wiki, which is a very simple collaborative tool. It is my theory and hope that its low barrier of entry will mean that the information here stays alive, and won't go stale. Anyone can edit any page, and there is no login required. Just click on the Edit button at the top right and you will be presented with text you can edit and save. It might take you a second or two to get used to the plain-text format used, but you may well soon learn to appreciate the format as being designed to be human-readable. Head over to the Sandbox to try it out!
If you're thinking right now that this will get abused… well, let it happen. Every change is logged and can be reverted, and should there really ever be a problem with everyone able to edit, we can start requiring signups. But let's cross that bridge when we get there.
My hope is that this site, which documents how we do things at the Thorndon Squash Club will not only be useful to future Thorndon Squash Club Captains, but also to the community beyond. I've only had the privilege to be in New Zealand for 4 years, and play squash for 3 of those, but I feel comfortable that this is one of the most inclusive, friendly, approachable communities out there, and I hope there is a long future to squash in New Zealand, and maybe in other places, too.
— Kia ora, Martin, August 2021
Anyone can edit the information here, just by clicking edit at the top right. Let's keep this information alive, together.
The Team
Our constitution only has room for one squash club captain, but until we get a chance to change that, at Thorndon there's a team running Everything Squash:
| Role | Name | Phone | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Membership & grading | Brad Watts | 0273905892 | info@thorndonclub.co.nz |
| Welcoming committee | Shanti Spendiff | 021566036 | welcome@thorndonclub.co.nz |
| Interclub convenor | Josie Grover | 0279686450 | interclub@thorndonclub.co.nz |
| Intraclub convenor | Christine Rukuwai | 0272527593 | intraclub@thorndonclub.co.nz |
| Club nights | Christine Rukuwai | 0272527593 | christine.rukuwai@hotmail.com |
| Paras Khanna | 0204727270 | paras.khanna87@gmail.com | |
| Newsletter | Victoria Moyle | 0279514099 | squashnews@thorndonclub.co.nz |
| Tournament control | Martin Krafft | 0211100938 | squashtc@thorndonclub.co.nz |
| Squash club captain | Mike McCarroll | 0278607128 | squash@thorndonclub.co.nz |
If you have an idea you'd like to see fly, or you would like to get involved, please get in touch with us. We run as a do-oracy, meaning that anything is possible if someone is prepared to see it through.
Communications
There is a semi-regular newsletter on stuff going on at the club, and what's coming up. You can subscribe at this link, and also view past issues. If you have something you'd like to add to the next issue, drop us a line.
Many of us also hang out in an online chat group, using the Element
Messenger. We chose this over Whatsapp,
because several of our members do not want to use a Facebook-owned app;
Element is independent. You can use it on your phone, install it on your
desktop/laptop, and even run it straight from the browser, or any combination
thereof. Visit this link
to get started, or just download the app, sign up for an account, and join
#thorndon-squash:madduck.net. There is also a women-only group, to which you
need to get invited.