The Duncan Pavilion

15/08/2025

Tonight's sunset viewed from The Duncan Pavilion
What could be better? YOU and whanau or friends enjoying it!
https://www.spacetoco.com/space/duncan-pavilion

13/08/2025

This time yesterday Council voted 12-0 to list The Duncan Pavilion as a category A historic building for Whanganui!

As noted in the meeting papers this puts and end to the option of demolition and commits Council to the buildings preservation.

As well as obtaining this listing to recognise the heritage value of The Duncan Pavilion James & Progress Castlecliff have in the last 18 months...

1. invested considerable time and effort into making booking and using The Duncan Pavilion much easier. This has resulted in approx. 3x the number of people/groups booking the Pavilion. As well as proving the need (The Pavilion had more bookings 2025/25 than all other WDC Venues combined) the income from bookings now more than covers Progress Castlecliff's costs - creating surplus that will go back into improvements!

2. Obtained the written support of the Trustees of the William McAlpine Duncan Estate (who funded the Pavilion) and descendants of the Duncan family (who met with the community 5 July 2025
https://www.facebook.com/events/714381887615007)

3. continued working with hapu to realise Rangi Tukutuku (a Kapehū Whetū or Star Compass) nearby and The Duncan Pavilion's place in that vision (more on this to come)

4. extensively engaged with Whanganui Council who now accept that the building is in good structural condition and should be maintained and improved NOT demolished. Demolition has been regularly brought up by Council throughout the 35 years Progress Castlecliff have managed the Pavilion for Council and the Whanganui community, most recently in mid 2024
https://www.whanganui.govt.nz/files/assets/public/v/1/projects/point-of-entry-business-cases/duncan-pavillion.pdf
Those ideas are now past and Progress Castlecliff partnered with Council to assure and build The Duncan Pavilion's future (including working with Council on related opportunities like Freedom Camping and Castlecliff beach & domain improvements)

5. Renewed the Memorandum of Understanding with Whanganui Council under which Progress Castlecliff will continue the last 35 years of care for The Duncan Pavilion, operating The Pavilion for the next 15 years (thru to June 2040)

Going forward...

- Progress Castlecliff will seek listing with Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga

- Progress Castlecliff will engage with community and Council, leveraging our status as a longstanding Registered Charity, the now assured future of The Duncan Pavilion inder community (Progress Castlecliff) management, the clear and heritage and comminity value of the Pavilion, funds from hires and relationships with local business, and (now acheivable) external funding restore and improve the Pavilion to serve Te Kaihau-o-Kupe & Whanganui for the next 60 years

- Progress Castlecliff will be working hard to see The Duncan Pavilion in top condition not only for for it's 60th birthday on 5th March 2027 but for the it's next 60 years serving and being loved by the Castlecliff and wider Whanganui community.
The William McAlpine Duncan Pavilion - 60th Birthday

11/08/2025

Dental care is a basic human need!
Support this call this Thursday.
(Dental for All orig booked The Duncan Pavilion but we helped them get a more central venue as it affects ALL!)

https://facebook.com/events/s/whanganui-dental-for-all-commu/24413573931594191/

Free dental care campaign comes to city
Dental for All roadshow advocates for public funding
Olivia Reid · Aug 12, 2025

A roadshow advocating publicly funded universal dental care is heading to Whanganui. The Dental for All coalition was started in early 2022 by Action Station’s Max Harris, and is now made up of dentists, unionists and antipoverty campaigners.
In 2023, a poll released by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists (ASMS), a member of the Dental for All coalition, showed 74% of people strongly agreed or agreed that adult dental care should be funded in the same way it is funded for children.
The year before, ASMS released the Tooth be Told report, which found that 42% of all adults in New Zealand have an unmet need for dental care because of cost.
“Nearly half of New Zealand adults have unmet dental needs because of cost, that’s in the most recent New Zealand Health survey, but those stats have been the same for a really long time,” Dental for All campaigner Hana Pilkinton-Ching said.
“That’s a really high proportion of the population who aren’t able to access a really basic type of healthcare.”
The Dental for All campaign also asks the Government to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi obligations.
“The way it is currently, for adults, dental care is almost entirely delivered in the private sector and so, because it’s separated from the rest of our health system, the Treaty obligations that the Government has across other areas of the health system are not really upheld.”
The estimated economic benefits of providing oral healthcare for 380,000 low-income adults, as published by the New Zealand Dental Association (NZDA), is $1.60 to the Government for every dollar spent.
“There’s not really any reason for oral health to be treated different from the rest of our health except that it’s just the way the system already is,” Pilkinton-Ching said.
Dental for All’s roadshow event in Whanganui will be a panel including chief executive of Ngā Waihua o Paerangi Trust Helen Leahy, coordinator at Auckland Action Against Poverty Agnes Magele, Dental for All campaigner Max Harris and Whanganui dentist Hadleigh Reid.
Reid said, if not universal dental care, more subsidies would be beneficial.
“I think some basic dental care could at least be subsidised. Maybe even just the basics like annual checkups and cleans, which would encourage initial dental visits, at least, and keep people connected with dental services,” he said.
“Most dental problems are preventable, but you can also say that for most medical problems and the Government pays for most of that, so I do think the Government should help more and should not differentiate between general health and dental health.”
The Dental for All roadshow will be in Whanganui on Thursday, August 14 from 5.30pm to 7.30pm at the Whanganui Regional Museum flexispace.
RSVP at our.actionstation.org.nz/ events. Food will be provided.

07/08/2025

🟡🔴 AGM NOTICE 🔴🟡

We'd love to see you at our AGM in a few weeks time!

This one's going to be all about the strategic direction for WSLS and how it's governed - so will be a goodie!

🗓Sunday 31st August
⏰10am
🏠WSLS Castecliff

Find out more about the AGM and how to get involved, check out our website: https://wanganuisls.org.nz/agm-information

06/08/2025

Phil is now The Duncan Pavilion booking officer (with Loulou and James as backup)
In this video Phil walks you through all you need to know to access and use the pavilion.
You can view photos, see availability, ask questions and make bookings quickly and easily on https://www.spacetoco.com/space/duncan-pavilion

19/07/2025

The Duncan Family’s generosity to Whanganui

The the official opening for the restored Duncan Fence on Durie Hill, took place on Saturday, July 5. The fence was originally constructed for the Duncan home Puke Tiro, which in 1952 was altered to become the Duncan hospital for the treatment of polio. This was funded by a grant from Sir Thomas and Lady Duncan of £80,000.
An editorial of The Wanganui Chronicle, dated October 3, 1952, was headed ‘The Duncan Bequests.’ It referred to the following bequests by “the late William McAlpine Duncan” especially the “large sum of approximately £100,000 for the benefit of the City of Wanganui.”

(The first Whanganui Duncan was Andrew, who arrived in Whanganui from Scotland in 1840’s He died in 1893)

Other donations included £2,000 to the New Zealand Institute for the Blind, and £1,000 to the Alexander Museum. William’s sister. “Miss M. A. Duncan, also bequeathed £5000 to the Whanganui Orphanage, £5000 to the NZ Institute of the Blind, £2000 to St Barnabas’ Church, Durie Hill; £1000 each to the Salvation Army and the Sarjeant Gallery and £500 each to the Jubilee Home at Aramoho and the Aubert Home of Compassion.”

The Chronicle concluded its editorial by stating “Seldom does it occur that a single family bestows upon its birthplace such munificence as that been received by the City of Wanganui from the members of the Duncan Family.”

The donations didn’t end there. William McAlpine “Bill” Duncan (1868-1950) brother of Sir Thomas and Lady Duncan was also very generous giving £50,000 to the War Memorial Hall, as well as significant donations to community, arts, culture and racing, funding the Sarjeant, Museum, Wanganui Club and many more. He left the bulk of his estate in trust - The W. M. McAlpine Trust - to continue supporting Whanganui – a trust that continues to this day with a $1m donation to the Sarjeant.
Representatives of the Duncan family will be at the opening on the restored fence and afterwards will view the Duncan Pavillion in Castlecliff. The building of the Pavillion was supported by a grant of £15000 from the W. M. McAlpine Trust, which was added to by a donation in 1973 of $4000 for the carpark and in 1977 of $2000 for a ‘viewscape.’

There is also the Sir Thomas & Lady Duncan Trust which supports and helps to relieve people in New Zealand who suffer from neuro-muscular disorders.
Most of the figures given are in pounds, but if translated into 2025 New Zealand dollars, it is estimated that the combined figure could be up to $200million.

There are other physical reminders of the Duncan family in Whanganui apart from the Pavillion and the fence, including Duncan Street, Boydfield Street (family home of Mrs A Duncan in Scotland), Young Street (a married daughter) and Helmore Street named after a Christchurch firm of solicitors which attended to the family business.

Photo: Duncan Pavillion

19/07/2025

Open 2-3pm if you want a look thru and scoop on good news for The Duncan Pavilion

18/07/2025

🔴🟡 🟡🔴

WSLS Members should have an email from us today - check your inboxes for important info regarding your 2025/26 membership which is due by 3 August.

If you'd love to join in you can find out more about our membership options by checking out our new website here:

➡ www.wanganuisls.org.nz

17/07/2025

There's no better promotion for The Duncan Pavilion than The Duncan Pavilion !
Come and check the place out. 2-3pm this Saturday 19th or look & book online
https://www.spacetoco.com/space/duncan-pavilion

08/07/2025

05/07/2025

Fantastic to host members of the Duncan family in the eponymous Duncan Pavilion after the Durie Hill event yesterday.

05/07/2025