Special Olympics: Judy Cossey, John Potts toast of Hawke's Bay branch after 30 years of service

Hastings stalwarts Judy Cossey, 71, and John Potts, 73, with their awards after more than 30 years of voluntary service to Special Olympics Hawke's Bay. Photo / Duncan Brown

Their paths to a noble cause may seem divergent but it took just a single thread of humanity to keep them fixated for more than three decades.

"To do it, I think, you have to have a sense of humour," says Judy Cossey after she and John Potts received long service awards late last month for their involvement with Special Olympics Hawke's Bay.

The Hastings pair received the accolades on Sunday, August 26, in recognition of more than 30 years of voluntary service to the Bay organisation, which is part of a global movement.

"It's humbling but it's also nice to be recognised — not for me, personally, but for Special Olympics to be recognised for going so long."

She enjoys the company of Special Olympians, their endeavours and sense of humour as well as the camaraderie with fellow volunteers and mentors.

Asked if it can be taxing at times in a group where patience is gold, a jovial Cossey replies: "Just a good sense of humour, I reckon. Lots of laugh, lots of enjoyment."

Potts alludes to that wicked sense of humour.

"It affects you in all sorts of ways but it's so rewarding and enjoyable," says the 73-year-old. " It's got plenty going for it so it's a fantastic organisation to be involved with."

For Cossey it began in the inaugural year of 1984 after Grant Quinn, a Lower Hutt-based insurance broker, took four blokes with Down Syndrome, including Colin Bailey, under his wings as a swim teacher.

"Grant took a year off work to travel the length and breadth of New Zealand to give talks to encourage people to form committees," says the 71-year-old retired school teacher from Kowhai Special Needs of Quinn who, with wife Wendy, went by the adage of "from small beginnings come great things" on the path to establishing Special Olympics New Zealand.

From there, Quinn embarked on a campaign to stage a national games for people with intellectual disabilities in Hutt Valley in 1985.

It was a causal question from an American exchange student at the Lower Hutt pool one day — "Is Colin was training for Special Olympics?" — that sparked Quinn to lead a community effort to establish a New Zealand branch of the worldwide sport movement that Eunice Kennedy Shriver founded in 1968.

Today, more than 3.7 million athletes from more than 170 countries are affiliated to the global network.

The Bay was one of those centres Quinn had visited in 1985. Consequently Cossey, with fellow Kowhai staff member Eddie Brown, became an integral part of a team of volunteers who sacrificed hours of labour and sweat to organise the inaugural regional games for all sports in 1986 at the now defunct Nelson Park (where the Hastings Park Mega Centre is situated).

She recalls Onekawa pools, whose days are numbered under the Napier City Council restructuring drive, had hosted swimmers. Indoor bowls were staged at the Indoor Sports Centre along Railway Rd and gymnastics was housed at the Hastings Intermediate School halls.

"The only other sport we had apart from athletics in those days was soccer so things like bocce came later."

The former IHC and schools with special needs classes became their main areas for enticing athletes in the Bay.

"Hawke's Bay took three busloads and a minivan [of athletes] to the first games in Lower Hutt."

It was awe inspiring, says Cossey, because nothing like that had been organised to find meaningful engagement for people with intellectual disabilities before.

The presence of the who's who of New Zealand athletics, such as Sir John Walker and Rod Dixon, presenting medals on the second day made an indelible impression.

"I was standing along the main track and Hawke's Bay athletes were lined up so we'd send them to the marshalling area and then go get them from the finish line.

"I spent the Sunday crying because all these guys were getting medals and I could see the joy on their faces so it was amazing."

For the woman who graduated from Ardmore as an "ordinary teacher" before going on to become the deputy principal of Kowhai school, the passion to be involved was infectious considering she didn't have anyone in her family line who had disabilities.

"I had taught at several country schools before teaching at Peterhead School in Flaxmere so I applied for a job at Kowhai and got it."

Cossey laughs, revealing in her day there were no prerequisites to working with children with special needs.

Her portfolio in the field includes positions as regional co-ordinator, sports director, and mentoring in gymnastics, athletics, basketball, bocce as well as orchestrating fitness classes during winters. She has served countless years on committees.

It's more laughter when asked if she was a sporty type, although she has played hockey.

"I've always been interested in sports and I've watched a lot of it on TV," she says, adding she followed her daughter, Anita Matthews, in sport.

"She did gymnastics so that started my interest in it," she says of Matthews, who also delved into roller skating and hockey.

Her coaching prowess came to the fore when she took a team to the 1988 Bi-Centennial Games in Australia, mentored the gymnastics team to the 1995 World Summer Games in Connecticut, in the United States, before assuming the mantle of New Zealand selector for four world summer games held every four years.

She was coached bocce, played at the 1991 World Summer Games in Minneapolis-St Paul, and was instrumental in helping bring it back to New Zealand. She travelled with the bocce players in the past three years, which has included the indoor bowlers in the same coaching sessions.

Cossey received a Queen's Service Medal in 1992 for her investment in Special Olympics.

Special Olympics New Zealand founder members Wendy Quinn and Grant Quinn with inaugural Don Syndrome member/swimmer Colin Bailey (centre). Photo / Supplied

The 1999 life member late last year was named patron after she retired from Special Olympics HB.

"When they have competitions and things like that here they ask me to present medals and just to keep taking an interest in it all which I do anyway."

She has travelled with the Special Olympics Bay squad to every summer games nationals since its inception.

Cossey still enjoys the thrill of travelling, including the world games which are now hosted outside the traditional US locations to nations such as China, Greece, Ireland and Dubai.

However, she retired from coaching this year to spend more quality time with her husband, Brian, who is unwell.

"He has been involved, too, over the years because he got dragged along, you see."

Potts was chairman of the Kowhai school board when his path crossed with Cossey who had arrived to teach.

"She and I and a small group of children who had first started running along the countryside doing athletics in Special Olympics," he says.

The retired mechanical engineer's motivation for Special Olympics came from intellectually disabled son Colin, 49, who has been involved with the organisation since 12 and still lives with Potts.

"It's quite a social thing because you meet so many people and you go off to many events with them to other areas.

"Colin had started with athletics and also competed in soccer, swimming, indoor bowls and tenpin bowling," he says.

In that time, Potts has been a parent, volunteer, supervisor and record keeper for the club, mostly in tenpin bowling.

Like other parents, he coached in myriad codes and resigned as record keeper in 2012 but still attends tenpin every Saturday as an avid supporter.

The trips with Colin's teams have been "very rewarding".

"It's such a good thing for the Special Olympians but just as much, if not more, rewarding for those of us who got involved with it so it's great for families," says Potts.

He says they were very naive as volunteers in the early days so they went along with rules as they were imposed gradually over the years.

"Having never had anything like that before but, overall, in more than 30 years it's been very satisfying."

Potts started experiencing problems with his sight about two decades ago.

"I haven't driven now for about 10 to 12 years so I can't see much at all," says the man who enjoys playing blind bowls and has 12 per cent vision left in just one eye.

That's why he can't help Yvonne Wilson, of Hastings, keep the score in tenpin bowling any more.

Cossey and Potts believe Special Olympics must never lose its place in the world.