Hamilton City Council Wins Top Honour

18 November 2011

Hamilton City Council Wins Top Honour

Hamilton City Council won the New Zealand Recreation Association’s (NZRA) 2011 Outstanding Event Award for the Hamilton Gardens Arts Festival at Thursday night’s NZRA annual awards ceremony.

Running since 1998, this event has become the largest arts festival in the Waikato region. Events are held over a two-week period in the second half of February. Opera, dance, theatre, rock concerts, pantomimes, workshops, exhibitions, film screenings and performance art are just some of the range of activities on offer each year.

“Despite the size, the festival has retained the high level of community involvement that made it a success initially,” said NZRA Chief Executive Andrew Leslie.

Staff ran the event for the first four years to increase numbers at the gardens, but it is now run by a trust and continues to attract visitors year round. “The event gets great results from a modest investment of money and attendance goes up every year,” Leslie added. He commented that the judging panel was impressed that the event was creatively designed to fit with the themed gardens units, as well as the fact that it combined both free and ticketed events.

The NZRA Outstanding Awards were presented during NZRA’s annual conference awards dinner, which was held at Dunedin’s Forsyth Barr Stadium. Recreation professionals from all around the country attended the conference, entitled “Recreation – we’ve got it covered”, which focussed on high level strategy, development, policy, and planning topics relevant to and across the range of sectors that make up the recreation industry. The key areas of this year's conference were: access, research, health, the impact of natural disasters and the future of the recreation industry.

“Recreation is essential to our physical and mental wellbeing,” said Leslie. “We are fortunate in New Zealand to have access to great outdoor parks and reserves, we have modern recreation facilities and a dedicated group of professionals who are committed to delivering innovative, safe, appropriate and entertaining recreational services.

“The awards are about thanking those people, and recognising those among them who raise the bar, develop original solutions and inspire New Zealanders to get active and healthy,” he said.

New Zealand Recreation Association is a not for profit industry member organisation committed to promoting recreation and providing professional services to the recreation sector.

NZRA represents professionals who work with public swimming pools, parks and open spaces, recreation facilities and recreation programmes. We believe recreation is vital to the wellbeing of New Zealanders.

ENDS

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