Westlander Of the Year Winners Announced

After a flurry of nominations in the last two weeks, Westland District Council is pleased to announce the winners of the Westlander of the Year Awards for significant and meritorious service to the benefit of Westland during 2017.

The award winner for the commercial/economic category is Evan Birchfield who is described by the people who nominated him as being “a top performer when it comes to business”. Birchfield was commended for providing employment opportunities to locals and for his contribution to the Ross community. The panel of independent judges for the commercial/economic category, including representatives from Enterprise Hokitika and businesses based in Hokitika and Kaniere, unanimously agreed that he was deserving of the award.

The Environmental and Community Award winners proved more difficult for their respective panel of judges to agree on.

In the end, Inger Perkins, was named the winner of the Westlander of the Year award for the Environmental category for her promotion of sustainability and volunteer work with the Kea Conservation Trust and West Coast Penguin Trust.

Dr Anna Dyzel of Westland Medical Centre took out the Westlander of the Year award for the community service category. Nominators cited her work organising Westland’s annual Children’s Day, the Hokitika Christmas Parade, active involvement with the Lions Club of Hokitika, and numerous other acts of service including cemetery restoration works and saving the Tambo replica at Sunset Point as the reasons for her nomination.

Westland Mayor, Bruce Smith, intends to present the awards to the winners at the December Ordinary Council meeting on 14 December 2017.

Westland District Council would like to thank the public for submitting so many high quality candidates for consideration and thank our three independent judges’ panels for their assistance at short notice.

Mayor Bruce Smith says, “I felt that it was important for the nominations not only to be generated by the community but also decided upon by appropriately qualified people in the community. I wish to extend my congratulations to the award winners. I consider myself lucky to get to live and work in a place like Westland which has an abundance of talented and generous people who give back to their communities.”

ENDS

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