Oval ideas are wanted

Woy Woy Public School principal Ms Ona Buckley has called on parents and the community to suggest a way to gather enough funds to resurface the school oval.

She said a grant from the Premier's Sporting Challenge program did not include upgrading the school oval.

"Our school oval is large and consists of very sandy soil," Ms Buckley said.

"To totally upgrade it to a level where it would sustain a lush green carpet of grass would cost much more than the grant money available.

"The school population not only is a constant user of the oval but we also allow many community sporting groups to train on it as well.

"We do this because we are a community school supporting our local community.

"The selection criteria for the grant was to resurface sporting amenities such as basketball or tennis courts, to repair existing facilities such as cricket nets, netball posts or football goals or to upgrade playing fields such as oval repair.

"The projects put forward for the grant by the school were to upgrade the oval, replace and update the cricket nets and to put in a sprinkler system to water the oval connected to the school bore."

Ms Buckley said the regional committee decided to allocate the school $30,000 to replace its cricket nets with the remainder of the grant being allocated to installing an underground pop-up sprinkler system from the bore to as much of the oval as possible.

"This is at present being quoted," Ms Buckley said.

"With a little top dressing and some fertilizer and being able to water evenly the grass should start to improve.

"The school of course would be glad of any other ideas."

Newsletter, 31 Aug 2010 Ona Buckley, Woy Woy Public School