2025 marks a decade since the heart of the Omihi district—the historic Glenmark Rugby Clubrooms—was lost to fire.

The clubrooms were a vital community hub, and its destruction was deeply felt by a district already grappling with hardship.

The year before, the local pub had also burned down, and the community was enduring a relentless drought.

While buildings can be replaced, people cannot, and the district felt another loss keenly in December when Nick “Ham” Hamilton passed away three years after being diagnosed with cancer.

Hamilton was instrumental in the hall’s rebuild, refusing to accept that a replacement would be financially unviable.

“He started a give-a-little page pretty much the day it burned down,” remembers Omihi farmer and close mate, Leighton Croft.

“If it wasn’t for the money he raised initially, we wouldn’t have a hall here today.”

A study conducted as part of a lotteries grant application had deemed the rebuild unfeasible due to the size of the local population and the hall’s expected use.

“We wouldn’t have met the criteria, but because the community had raised so much money, that made the difference, and Ham was the driving force behind that,” Croft explains.

Hamilton’s family had been farming in the district for three generations, and his connection to Glenmark Rugby Club was undeniable.

“It was in his blood,” Croft said. “Glenmark was full of All Blacks, and the pride that came with that was immense.”

While Hamilton didn’t have the rugby skills of his All Black brother, Scott, his passion for the game was unmatched.

“He had enthusiasm,” Croft said. “You could build a team around that.”

The new Omihi Hall was completed in 2018 and has since been used not just by Glenmark Rugby Club but by the school at which Hamilton had been a pupil, local community groups, weddings, The Rural Support Trust and even fitness classes.

And while the new hall stands as a testament to Hamilton’s passion, it wasn’t the only way he stepped up for his community.

“He threw himself into everything – from the school to the Rural Support Trust, the rebuilding of the Glenmark Church to the tennis club.

“He was a “yes” man.

“When there was something in the community that needed people to contribute to, he would put his hand up,” Croft said.

That extended to supporting fellow farmers when a three-year drought struck the Hurunui district in 2015.

He was an active member of what was then known as the Drought Committee but has since been renamed Hurunui Adverse Events.

Hawarden farmer and Drought Committee member Dan Hodgen remembers Hamilton as “never being a passenger” when it came to helping out and was “donkey deep” in everything he did.

“He wasn’t one of those people who would just sit back and do the grunt work.

“He was always organising; he was an asset for adverse events.

“I don’t know how he fit it all in, to be fair.”

Hodgen remembers a phone call from Hamilton in 2016 when he pitched an ambitious idea for the committee.

“He said, ‘Why don’t we take a hundred farmers to FieldDays?’

“And I thought, you are bloody nuts – how the hell do we put that together?”

Up until that point, the drought committee had focused on smaller events, like community barbecues.

But Hamilton saw the potential for a larger, morale-boosting initiative—taking farmers to Mystery Creek in Hamilton.

Despite the logistical and financial challenges, Hamilton was unwavering.

“You couldn’t say no to him,” Hodgen said.

“Between the two of us, we raised $60,000 in two days.

“He put it all together and drove the project from start to finish.

“That was Ham—go big or go home.”

Nick Hamilton was farewelled with a celebration of his life at the Omihi Hall on December 13 2024.

He was 50 years old.

By Claire Inkson