It doesn’t matter if we win or not, we still think we have the best beach in New Zealand. That’s the message the Whakatāne District Council is sending with its call to get the whole community involved in our own version of the YouTube sensation, the ‘Harlem Shake’.

Council Promotions Officer Nicola Burgess says the national ‘Best Beach’ poll initiated by the Green party came to a close last week, with Ōhope on top of the leaderboard as the period for voting came to an end. “The final results won’t be announced till next week and while we’re quietly confident we’ll take out the title, we think our own version of the Harlem Shake will be great a way to celebrate our wonderful beach, regardless of the outcome,” she says. “We’ve just been crowned the Sunshine Capital of New Zealand, and now we’re up for New Zealand’s best beach; -what’s not to celebrate?!

“We want as many people as possible to come along to the Ōhope Surf Lifesaving Club at 4.30pm on Thursday 7 March to join in. For those who haven’t seen the Harlem Shake in action, you can check out what 1XX and White Island Tours have done on their Facebook pages, or the thousands of others on YouTube. Basically, it starts with one person dancing in costume, and then more and more join in until there’s a whole crowd dancing to same tune.”

Ms Burgess adds that everyone is invited and it’s a case of ‘the more; the merrier’.  “We want people to join in the fun, whether they’re young, old or somewhere in the middle. We’d love to see people in their beach-themed costumes; or whatever else they can rummage up for a costume, because anything goes!”

The official results of the Best Beach competition will be announced on Monday by the Green Party. Whakatāne District Council aims to load the finished product to its two Facebook pages (www.facebook.com/whakatastic? and www.facebook.com/WhakataneDistrictCouncil) immediately after the announcement.