New Year Honours: Hawke's Bay couple Ronald and Ngaire Rowe both get Queen's Service Medal

Married couple Ngaire and Ronald Rowe have both been awarded the Queen's Service Medal for services to the community. Photo / Supplied

Ronald and Ngaire Rowe were "thrilled to bits" when they received a letter with the news they'd both been awarded the Queen's Service Medal for services to the community.

The award is special enough, but the fact they're married and are both receiving the award is even more remarkable.

"I'm not sure that there's a whole lot of couples that get that award. It was a feeling of disbelief for the both of us. We both thought 'this can't be real'." Ronald Rowe said.

"We've just always bounced off each other and it's quite hard to believe the diversity of things that we've been involved in."

During the past 50 years the couple have been involved in myriad community organisations and projects.

To commemorate Napier RSA's centenary, Ronald Rowe led the establishment and held administrative and secretarial roles with the trust. His wife Ngaire also assisted with the establishment and held administrative and secretarial roles within the organisation.

She was also involved with the Hastings Central Lion's Club, serving as secretary and president in the late 1990s.

Ronald Rowe also engaged on many platforms of Lions events, including chairing a liver transplant appeal in the mid 1980s, one of which was for a 7-month-old baby. The appeal acted as a catalyst to establish a New Zealand Liver Transplant Clinic.

Both he and his wife were international volunteers and worked in Papua New Guinea and Samoa with the Volunteer Service Abroad (VSA) organisation for two years.

"We just loved it. We were close to Rabaul, which was the main Japanese base during the war, so it was full of history."

The couple also chaired the Whanganui Hospital Chapel rebuilding appeal, and Ronald Rowe involved himself with the New Zealand Institute of Management and was the originator of a trust to raise the river ship Waimarie from the Whanganui River bed.

"We've worked with such fabulous people and that's a real highlight for the both of us. I summed this up at a talk I gave at the UN in 2001 for the international year of the volunteer and my topic was about servant leadership. That's what volunteering is, it's being a servant to the people, but it's also taking on a leadership role."