Huge demand for tickets to WSET dinner

Organisers of the Wairarapa Sports Education Trust dinner at the Genesis Recreation Centre in Masterton on Saturday have had to turn people away.
Trust spokesman Craig McBride said the popularity of the function, which will feature former Wallaby Peter FitzSimons and Southern Sting netball coach Robyn Broughton as the prime speakers, was such that even though the number of attendees had been increased by 470 to 500 more tickets could have been sold.
"We've had to turn people away, some of whom even had the cash at the ready," McBride said. "It was already going to be a push to get everyone in and we simply couldn't take any more."
Acquiring FitzSimons as a speaker was a huge bonus for the WSET as he has been one of Australia's busiest after-dinner speakers over the past decade.
A multi-talented and multi-faceted newspaper and television commentator whose credits include playing seven tests at lock for the Wallabies, the first of them in 1984, FitzSimons has authored 12 best selling books, and interviewed such famous personalities as Mother Theresa, George Bush, and Gough Whitlam, along with notable sportspeople Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis, Shane Gould and Greg Norman.
In 2001 he was Australia's leading non-fiction author with his biographies on war-time heroine Nancy Wake and Wallabies skipper John Eales, and his latest book, Tobruk, was released just last year. It is a gripping and moving story of that iconic battle.
FitzSimons is also a highly respected columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and London Daily Telegraph and a regular panelist on Fox Sports's Back Page show.
Robyn Broughton took the Southern Sting to seven wins in the 10-year history of New Zealand netball's premier competition, the National Bank Cup, and, remarkably, they were runners-up on the other three occasions. She was also assistant coach of the Silver Ferns from 2000-02 and coached New Zealand A in 1988-89. While in Masterton Broughton will also tutor at an hour-long workshop for coaches to be conducted by Sport Wairarapa and Netball Wairarapa at St Matthews College gymnasium on Saturday afternoon.
FitzSimons and Broughton are, however, not the only notable sporting personalities who will be taking a formal part in what will be a busy programme at the WSET dinner.
Current Black Caps coach John Bracewell has agreed to take part in a panel discussion, which is also likely to feature Wairarapa rugby legend Sir Brian Lochore.
New Zealand cricket's rising star Ross Taylor will be among the attendees and so will Andrew McNeur, the former Wairarapa College student who is walking the length and breadth of New Zealand to fund raise for the Arthritis Foundation. All Blacks first-five Dan Carter won't be there in person but he has signed several pairs of the underpants he advertises and they will be a star attraction in an auction which will also include a netball signed by current members of the Silver Ferns squad.