RECREATION AND THE ARTS
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In support of the International Year of the Child, the Urban Council organised a series of special activities for children and teenagers. These included two painting competitions, games, fun fairs and folk dances.
Similar entertainment programmes were organised by the New Territories Services Department in the New Territories. About 121,000 people took part in 150 events.
Swimming
Swimming is Hong Kong's most popular summer recreation. There are 40 gazetted beaches. These comprise 12 beaches on Hong Kong Island, under Urban Council control, and 28 in the New Territories, managed by the Urban Services Department. The beaches have life- guards, first aid posts, changing rooms, showers and other facilities. The Urban Services Department also manages nine swimming pool complexes in the urban areas for the Urban Council, and two in the New Territories.
It is estimated that 24 million people visited the beaches and four million used the swimming pool complexes during the swimming season. Thirteen new swimming pool com- plexes are being planned - two on Hong Kong Island, five in Kowloon and six in the New Territories.
Recreation and Sport Service
In 1979, the government's Recreation and Sport Service celebrated its fifth year of operations. Since it was established, much has been achieved in providing recreation and sporting activities for people of all ages throughout Hong Kong.
The service now operates 17 district offices where full-time staff organise events for com- munity participation. The labour force is the service's main target group. The programmes offered-cover a wide variety of activities and are often over-subscribed. Throughout the year, more than 450,000 people took part in some 3,500 recreational programmes. In order to cope with the number of applicants, the service, besides mounting its own functions with the $3.5 million at its disposal, assisted in the promotion of joint recreational projects. It worked with the Urban Council, district advisory boards in the New Territories, governing sports bodies and various district sporting associations.
A number of large commercial organisations came forward and offered sponsorship for recreational and sporting events. They supported football, table tennis and tennis events, and assisted in the mounting of a large-scale women's athletics programme and a jogging programme. The service's bi-monthly newspaper and publicity material were also sponsored by companies.
A successful learn-to-sail scheme was jointly promoted with the Hong Kong Yachting Association and the Urban Council during 1979. More than 4,000 applications were received for the 500 places available.
Coaching and sports competitions on a territory-wide basis were held in conjunction with governing sports bodies with whom the technical and planning section of the service liaised. The section provided technical assistance and advice to sports associations, volun- tary organisations, commercial firms, factories and government departments in the organisa- tion of events or in the planning and designing of recreational and sports facilities. It also contributed to the planning of facilities for the new towns of the New Territories.
The Sai Kung Outdoor Recreation Centre, which is run by the service, continued to be extremely popular. During 1979, 65,000 people used the centre's facilities. In February, the newly-completed Field Studies Centre, which forms part of the Sai Kung centre, was handed over to the Education Department. It has been in use since August. The Field Studies