Media Release for Immediate Release
Wellington Regional Winners Announced in the Sport New Zealand Volunteer of the Year Awards

Sport Wellington announced the regional winners of the 2012 Sport Volunteer Awards at a breakfast at the Mercure Wellington - Willis Street this morning. The Awards Breakfast was attended by special guest speakers Peter Taylor (Olympic Bronze Medallist), and Steve Willis (Olympic Athletics Coach). Both Steve and Peter praised the assembled finalists and paid complements to the small army of volunteers who had contributed to their respective Olympic campaigns.

Sport Wellington received over 350 nominations for the awards and the judges had the difficult task of deciding winners in the three categories of Volunteer, Student Volunteer and Good Sorts, and an overall regional winner from these three people.

The winner of the Student Sport Volunteer Award was Wellington High School’s Henry Tutaka. The judges said of Henry that ‘his dedication and commitment across a range of sports at his college is admirable. He clearly has the respect of players, parents, officials and the school. For such a young lad he is a leader amongst his peers and in college sport in our region.”

The winner of the Good Sorts Category was Nick Goodall from Island Bay United FC. The judges made mention that “Nick’s energies, skills, passion and commitment towards not just the people of his club, but the community of Wellington football are considerable. He acts in good faith on behalf of many groups in his varying roles and advocates for them all equally and fairly.”

The Volunteer Award winner was Willy Szeto. Willy has been involved with athletics in the Wellington region for 16 years, and has run the Karori Athletics Club for most of this time. The judges said that choosing this category was “extremely difficult; but the commitment that Willy has had to his club, community and sport is incredible, [and his] endeavours, be they holding stopwatches on the sideline, coaching athletes, helping govern the sport or assisting in some way and for such large hours in a year swayed us [to choose him.]

For his volunteer administration work across the full spectrum of his sport Willy was also crowned the overall Wellington Regional winner. Willy will now attend the National Sport Volunteer of the Year awards to be held as part of the NZ Sport and Recreation Awards in Rotorua in 2013.

Sport Wellington acknowledges all 75,000 sport volunteers in the Wellington region, without whom sport at any level would not be possible.

ENDS

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