A special general meeting of the Hill City Athletics Club on Thursday night unanimously supported a proposal to amalgamate with the Otago University club.
The 31 members at the meeting backed the plan and the combined club will begin operations from the beginning of the harrier season next April.
The club will be known as the Hill City-University Athletics Club and the uniform will be a black shirt, singlet and shorts with the trims on the singlet to be in yellow and Cambridge blue. The name will be on the front of the singlet.
The annual meeting of the Hill City Club in September gave approval for a sub-committee to explore the possibilities of amalgamation. The annual meeting of the University club approved the amalgamation.
The clubs have been discussing the possibility of amalgamation since the beginning of the harrier season this year and the committees of both recognise the advantages. The University club has talented athletes but it does not not have enough members to administer the club.
"The amalgamation will help both clubs and also benefit athletics in Otago," the immediate past president of the Hill City Club Kevin Murphy said.
"The students are committed to their studies and don't have the time to organise their cub. They just need someone to look after them."
A former president of the Hill City club Richard Barker said that the amalgamation would provide the students with the infrastructure that they lacked at present.
"They have good numbers for the first two races in the harrier season but a lot of athletes drift away after that because there is no structure in the club."
The president of the Otago University Club Kieran Cody said in a written statement that "our competitive numbers have substantially decreased in the past five or six years, to the point where we have not been able to field a team at the New Zealand road relay championships for the past two years.
"As an amalgamated club we will have a strong competitive men's and women's team and a more stable administrative base."
Hill City was formed in 1981 by an amalgamation of three clubs, Mornington, Dunlaider and Presbyterian.
Athletics is not the only sport where a university cub has amalgamated with a city club.
The Grange-University Cricket club is a successful amalgamation. It started with the amalgamation of Grange with the High School Old Boys' Club.
