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Sport and Spare-Time Activities
The Annual Survey of Residents showed that the majority of City residents have taken part in some form of physical activity in the twelve months prior to the survey. The actual level of involvement has changed minimally over recent years. Thirty one percent of residents have been involved in a physical activity run by a club. While 73 percent have taken part in physical activity away from home. Just over 51 percent of residents aged under 18 years had participated in active sport, games or lesson run by a club, association or school.
Thirty-three percent of residents said that they would have liked to have taken part in a spare time activity during the last year, but could not. This was an increase of 7 percent since 1994. The main reasons for not participating were lack of time/existing commitments (34 percent), cost (10 percent), lack of energy (8 percent) and lack of suitable childcare (5 percent).
According to the latest Annual Survey of Residents (1996), 68 percent of residents took part in a community based activity in the last 12 months, an 8 percent decline since 1995. The most popular venues were clubrooms (21 percent) and schools (20 percent). Ten percent of residents said their activities took place in a community hall with 10 percent in private homes. Other places used for community activities included church facilities (9 percent) and community centres (7 percent).
Canterbury Public Library offers a library and information service from a network of 11 libraries including the Central City library, 10 community libraries, 2 mobile libraries and 2 children’s libraries. Each library has a wide range of resources including books, cassettes, CDs, magazines and other materials. The Central Library has a good range of videos including music, sport, educational and literary subjects. While community and mobile libraries also have a small range of videos.
At the end of the June 1996, the Canterbury Public Library had 221,803 enrolled members. This was an increase of just over 20,000 since June 1995. During 1996, the network of libraries issued 4,920,067 items and answered 772,643 enquires. Both the number of items issued and enquires declined slightly during the 1996 year.
According to the 1996 Annual Survey of Residents 65 percent of residents visited a Christchurch City Council Library on at least one occasion during the previous twelve months, while 31 percent visited a library once week of more during this period.