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must have the potential for making significant contributions to the well-being of the individual and society at large.
There has been growing interest in recreation as a form of community service, mainly because of the dramatic expansion of leisure that has come about in Hong Kong nowadays and also partly because of the continuing rise in personal income and overall standard of living. Therefore, organized forms of recreation will have to be developed increasingly to fill the void of empty time in a meaningful and constructive way. Recreation is particularly important for children as, outside school, children could form wrong habits due to unwholesome play conditions and develop traits of character which make much of the school training useless. Recreation has great contribution as far as growth and development of the participants are concerned. When one recognizes that one's use of leisure not only expresses but influences the nature of personality growth and self-fulfillment, and that a family climate in which parents can enjoy with their children in a relaxed and happy involvement in leisure activities contributes greatly to healthy development, it becomes obvious that recreation has great psychological implications and it must be recognized as essential to the mental health of all individuals. Physically, it is important to recognize that recreation in the form of sports, games and moderately strenuous outdoor pastimes may make an important contribution to the physical well-being of the participants, whether young or old. Another socially important aspect of recreation is that it can provide the opportunity for group experience that meet the fundamental human needs. Sports are a very important part of recreation. Because of their great popularity, sports have traditionally been an important part of public recreation programmes. In addition to the popularity, they have the great advantage that they can be offered in various fields of skill, ranging from the complete beginner to the advanced competitive level. Whilst some sport activities may require class supervision or instruction, many of them almost run themselves once league, teams and schedules have been established. It is possible, therefore, to serve comparatively large groups of people with the minimum of professional leadership, compared to certain other recreational activities. Furthermore, in terms of advancing the positive values of recreation experience, sports offer a great potential.
The Urban Council plays a very important part in recreation because the Urban Council is responsible for the planning of new parks, recreation and amenities to match the growing public needs and to promote the fullest co-operation of all public and private organizations to meet the community's recreational needs, and also to keep under continued review the active recreational needs of all sections of the
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population, including the provision of new types of facilities. Target has been set that there should be one swimming pool for every 250,000 people. Working towards this goal, Urban Council should be able to achieve this aim in the not too distant future. We should set up a similar target and long term plan for other recreational facilities based on objective studies. Therefore, evaluation of the community's needs should be carried out without delay in order to assess the requirements and set up a target for every type of recreation. For example, in United States of America the commonly accepted standard for tennis courts is one tennis court per 2,000 population. We can assess what is the acceptable standard in Hong Kong only through actual evaluation of the community needs. Similarly, the standard for other recreation should be worked out before the development plan could be finalized.
We all realize that we do not have enough outdoor stadia in Hong Kong. Even when the Ho Man Tin Stadium is completed in say three years' time, the total seating capacity of the outdoor stadia, including both public and private, is only 150,000. We should consider to have another new stadium in the Kowloon Peninsula before too long. Based on the accepted ratio of 4:1 in other countries, we should have indoor stadia of total seating capacity 38,000 in the next three years. The seating capacity of the Hung Hom indoor stadium and the Morrison Hill stadium will be 18,000 and 3,500 respectively. If we take into consideration the out-dated Southorn and MacPherson Stadium the seating capacity in three years' time is only 25,000, which is far below standard. Therefore, serious consideration should be given to the construction of additional indoor stadia in the near future, alternatively, we should consider seriously to support private organizations in their indoor stadium development projects.
About the recreational facilities we should also seriously consider to provide adventure playgrounds. An adventure playground is a place where children of all ages, under friendly supervision, are free to do many things they can no longer easily do in our crowded urban society; things like building huts, lighting fires and cooking, tree-climbing, digging, camping, gardening, as well as playing team and group games, painting, reading or doing nothing. For it must also be a place where children just meet and talk in a free, relaxed atmosphere. They do not have to pay to enter, nor do they join as members. They just come to the playground whenever they feel like it. On conventional playgrounds, once a child has swung on the swing, slid down the slide, rocked on the metal horse, what next? An adventure playground is more fun for children because they are playing on or with things they have built or made themselves. The structures and activities are always changing,
320
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
must have the potential for making significant contributions to the well-being of the individual and society at large.
There has been growing interest in recreation as a form of com- munity service, mainly because of the dramatic expansion of leisure that has come about in Hong Kong nowadays and also partly because of the continuing rise in personal income and overall standard of living. Therefore, organized forms of recreation will have to be developed in- creasingly to fill the void of empty time in a meaningful and constructive way. Recreation is particularly important for children as, outside school, children could form wrong habits due to unwholesome play conditions and develop traits of character which make much of the school training useless. Recreation has great contribution as far as growth and development of the participants are concerned. When one recognizes that one's use of leisure not only expresses but influences the nature of personality growth and self-fulfillment, and that a family climate in which parents can enjoy with their children in a relaxed and happy involvement in leisure activities contributes greatly to healthy development, it becomes obvious that recreation has great psychological implications and it must be recognized as essential to the mental health of all individuals. Physically, it is important to recognize that recreation in the form of sports, games and moderately strenvous outdoor pastimes may make an important contribution to the physical well-being of the participants, whether young or old. Another socially important aspect of recreation is that it can provide the opportunity for group experience that meet the fundamental human needs. Sports are a very important part of recreation. Because of their great popularity, sports have traditionally been an important part of public recreation programmes. In addition to the popularity, they have the great advantage that they can be offered in various fields of skill, ranging from the complete beginner to the advanced competitive level. Whilst some sport activities may require class supervision or instruction, many of them almost run themselves once league, teams and schedules have been established. It is possible, therefore, to serve comparatively large groups of people with the minimum of professional leadership, compared to certain other recreational activities. Furthermore, in terms of advancing the positive values of recreation experience, sports offer a great potential.
The Urban Council plays a very important part in recreation be- cause the Urban Council is responsible for the planning of new parks, recreation and amenities to match the growing public needs and to promote the fullest co-operation of all public and private organizations to meet the community's recreational needs, and also to keep under continued review the active recreational needs of all sections of the
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 196 of 212
321
population, including the provision of new types of facilities. Target has been set that there should be one swimming pool for every 250,000 people. Working towards this goal, Urban Council should be able to achieve this aim in the not too distant future. We should set up a similar target and long term plan for other recreational facilities based on objective studies. Therefore, evaluation of the community's needs should be carried out without delay in order to assess the requirements and set up a target for every type of recreation. For example, in United States of America the commonly accepted standard for tennis courts is one tennis court per 2,000 population. We can assess what is the acceptable standard in Hong Kong only through actual evaluation of the community needs. Similarly, the standard for other recreation should be worked out before the development plan could be finalized.
We all realize that we do not have enough outdoor stadia in Hong Kong. Even when the Ho Man Tin Stadium is completed in say three years' time, the total seating capacity of the outdoor stadia, including both public and private, is only 150,000. We should consider to have another new stadium in the Kowloon Peninsula before too long. Based on the accepted ratio of 4:1 in other countries, we should have indoor stadia of total seating capacity 38,000 in the next three years. The seating capacity of the Hung Hom indoor stadium and the Morrison Hill stadium will be 18,000 and 3,500 respectively. If we take into consideration the out-dated Southorn and MacPherson Stadium the seating capacity in three years' time is only 25,000, which is far below standard. Therefore, serious consideration should be given to the construction of additional indoor stadia in the near future, alternatively, we should consider seriously to support private organizations in their indoor stadium development projects.
About the recreational facilities we should also seriously consider to provide adventure playgrounds. An adventure playground is a place where children of all ages, under friendly supervision, are free to do many things they can no longer easily do in our crowded urban society; things like building huts, lighting fires and cooking, tree-climbing, digging, camping, gardening, as well as playing team and group games, painting, reading or doing nothing. For it must also be a place where children just meet and talk in a free, relaxed atmosphere. They do not have to pay to enter, nor do they join as members. They just come to the play- ground whenever they fell like it. On conventional playgrounds, once a child has swung on the swing, slid down the slide, rocked on the metal horse, what next? An adventure playground is more fun for children because they are playing on or with things they have built or made themselves. The structures and activities are always changing,
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