Wellington North Badminton wishes to recognise the huge contribution made by the Muir family in providing a superb six court facility by naming the lounge in their honour.

Ideas for the stadium were first mooted in the early 1970’s but it wasn’t until 1992 that things really started moving. At that time the Association comprised various clubs which were homed in a number of community and school halls including: Onslow, Tawa, RSA, Newlands, Ngaio and Ngatitoa. Key people involved in those early days were Tony Muir, Valerie Hall, Lyndsay Dahlberg, Ian Brown, Peter Smith and Trevor Bray. A key factor in the decision was the exorbitant charges that the City Council started charging for the hire of the courts which was in the order of $22 per hour per court with an added levy of $1.50 per player.

Main challenges were funding and consent. Tony, who was Vice President at the time of starting construction in November, 1994, was reported in the Evening Post as saying: “Planning for the facility began about 5 years ago, and it took 9 months to get planning approval because it was being built on reserve land. It has been 5 years of hard slog to get it to this stage.”

In 1994 the Lotteries Commission granted $70k of funding and a Building Permit was issued by the Tawa Borough Council / WCC. The effort is not solely attributed to Tony for the delivery of the project; he also volunteered his family. Ant did the design work and Doug was lead carpenter. Judy, held the most important role and was responsible for the administration and the provision of lunches for the volunteers. Tony also volunteered his building company to the cause and lined up all manner of subcontractors to contribute; not to forget all the plucky volunteers.

The budget for the building work was $300k and the completed facility was valued at $1.1m. Needless to say, the main reason for the financial success of WNBA over the past 30 years is because no money has had to be borrowed to fund the hall. The current value of the facility is $3m.

Courts were first played on in 1996 and the hall was officially opened in 1999. The Muir Family continue to contribute to the upkeep and maintenance of the hall today.

It is with great pleasure that we recognise the contribution of the Muir family by naming the upstairs lounge area the Muir Lounge.