Pāpāmoa Surf Lifesaving Club is the 2023 Bay of Plenty overall Club of the Year.
All three of the district’s surf life-saving clubs were winners at the recent Surf Life Saving New Zealand Bay of Plenty and Coromandel Awards of Excellence.
At the top of the heap, Pāpāmoa Surf Lifesaving Club won the Bay of Plenty overall Club of the Year award.
Club president Andrew Hitchfield says the club is “stoked” with the win.
“We’re pretty fast-growing; we’ve got about 1000 members and our juniors are growing really fast, which is fantastic. We’ve positioned ourselves well for the future.”
He says the award is a tribute to everyone involved.
“You don’t win these things without hard work, and a lot of that hard work is done in the background. There are a lot of people who are very humble and do a lot of hard work for the club. They don’t want recognition, and I think this is all about them and the volunteers — the volunteer coaches that coach the nippers on Sunday mornings, the volunteer lifeguards, the instructors and trainers, the committees and the board, which [chairman] Jim [Pearson] leads brilliantly.
“It’s an honour, and we’re quite humbled as a club to be named as Club of the Year, but our fellow clubs do a great job across the coast — we share the coast in terms of looking after our patches.”
Andrew says the club’s work doesn’t stop during winter, with preparations for next season in the form of training, administration and planning ongoing.
Maketū Surf Lifesaving Club won the Bay of Plenty Patrol Club of the Year award for the second year in a row, and club member Wade Meads won the Bay of Plenty Patrol Support Person of the Year award.
Club president Mereheni Meads says the club award is judged on areas such as the number of lifeguards who refresh, the number of new guards, patrol hours and volunteer hours increases.
“It’s a pretty good achievement,” she says.
Wade is a patrolling club member who is trained in and does everything except the water-based roles.
“[Patrol support] is a really good position for the people who aren’t necessarily as confident being in the water. It means they can still be involved in running patrols and running scenarios or being up in the radio station and all that sort of stuff for the club.
“Ninety per cent of what we do at patrol is actually out of the water, and Wade does all that with us.”
Wade will now represent the region at the national awards in September.
Pukehina Surf Rescue won the Sustainable Action Award, while club president Boyd Harris was named Bay of Plenty Examiner of the Year and Nicole Baker won the Bay of Plenty Emerging U-19 Volunteer Lifeguard of the Year Award for the second year in a row.
“For Nicole, it’s pretty cool. She’s a really good young lifeguard and she gives back to the club, she instructs people that are older than her, she helps out on junior surf, and has done the most patrol hours at the club for the last two seasons, each time topping 100 volunteer patrol hours,” says Boyd.
Nicole has only just turned 16, so she will be eligible for the award for three more years.
The club is currently constructing a new headquarters and the Sustainable Action Award, also won for the second time in two years, relates to the work.
“Through the whole demolition [of the old clubhouse], only two and a half skip bins went to landfill. The rest was repurposed, recycled or given away,” says Boyd.
Other local winners:
U-15 Female Sports Person of the Year: Amelie Pearson (Pāpāmoa SLSC).
Masters Female Sports Person of the Year: Naomi Davoren (Pāpāmoa SLSC).
Regional Service Awards: Andrew Hitchfield, Jim Pearson, Kathryn Stewart (all Pāpāmoa SLSC).
Regional Distinguished Service Awards: Sandra Boubee, Naomi Davoren, Joanne Miller (all Pāpāmoa SLSC).