Community board award earns praise at national conference

An event celebrating the grassroots volunteers that make Waitakere tick earned the city’s four community boards special recognition at the 2009 Community Boards Conference in Christchurch.

The Waitakere City Community Board ‘Unsung Hero’ Awards were highly commended in the partnerships category of the Best Practice Awards, held at the culmination of the conference.

The conference also celebrated 20 years of community boards in New Zealand and was attended by Prime Minister John Key.

“They don’t often give out highly commended awards so this was a real thrill,” says Waitakere Community Board deputy chairperson and chair of the 2008 awards committee, Christine Shepherd.

“It’s also nice to be recognised for something that celebrates people working to make a difference at the grassroots levels of our community. This is very much in line with the work of community board members.”

The Waitakere City Community Board ‘Unsung Hero’ Awards were launched last year as a way to recognise those individuals who do things for their community just for the satisfaction of helping others or making their community a better place to live

Each of the wards, Henderson, New Lynn, Massey and Waitakere, had five recipients and the calibre of the nominations last year was so high that two special citywide awards were made.

Representatives from each four community boards attended the national conference.