In celebrating the very finest in 2021, those who ensure the smooth running of the game at all levels were also honoured in the Cadbury Volunteer of the Year awards.
Operating out of the Waiuku Netball Centre (Netball Northern), Kim Voigt took out the Community Volunteer Champion of the Year. Her 21-plus years of involvement accompanied by an undiminshed enthusiasm, positive energy and strong connection between schools and Centres.
A dedicated team player volunteering across all areas of her centre, Voigt handles a huge administrative role as Centre secretary.
In a newly established role, Voigt is also the Volunteer Coordinator for Waiuku, a role she is especially passionate about while continuously supporting and acknowledge all volunteers who give their time at all levels across the Centre and 14 affiliated clubs.
This year, Voigt continued to help with coordination of the ANZ futureFERNS programme, providing invaluable support to mentor the new programme coordinator, as well as on court coaching of new junior players and their parents/caregivers.
Voigt has also volunteered as part of the small team that has delivered “Have a Go” netball sessions to over 1100 primary school participants over two terms, her impact ensuring its success and growing numbers.
She is also first to rally the local Purple Army to support the Northern Stars, often arranging tickets for large groups of Waiuku supports to attend games.
A real multi-tasker, Voigt epitomises the very best of our community netball volunteers. She devotes a huge amount of her personal time to netball with her enthusiasm while adding extra attention to detail across all areas of her Centre.
Netball Northern’s Donna Erceg won the Volunteer Coach of the year for 2021 after coaching multiple teams, which included a premier team, a repersentative team and as a school development coach.
In every single game, every player got on court, displaying the belief Erceg has in her players and empowering them on court.
Always extremely well prepared, Erceg’s trainings are thoughtfully planned out, while also understanding the different needs of each player, be it university or family commitments, whether they were younger and new to premier netball or whether they were just having a bad day.
Always thinking about how to improve, where she can learn, and about how to get the best out of every player, Erceg has constantly attended coaching workshops and trainings put on by NNZ and Auckland Netball in an effort to up-skill herself.
Alongside her coaching, Erceg is a volunteer umpire at every level and spends her off-time umpiring various school tournaments, grading matches and all day Saturday at the courts.
This year Erceg was coach of the Panmure 2 premier netball team, which she guide to the grand final, the Auckland U16(2) which placed sixth at Nationals, beating the U16 (1) team in the process, as well as being the Diocesan school development coach where her main role was to up-skill other coaches.
In her role as Umpiring Co-ordinator at her College Rifles club, in addition to umpiring premier and senior A games for Auckland Netball Centre, Northern’s Kate Ward has been recognised as the 2021 Volunteer Official of the Year.
Ward is hugely passionate about umpiring, evident in the work she does on a weekly basis to find umpires, ensuring no team is ever short and can always be found on the sideline with a whistle in her hand, either umpiring or running from court to court in between rounds.
Committed to her own development as an umpire having progressed to premier and senior A level in the last few of years, Ward has completed the NZ Theory qualification and spends hours outside of netball working on her fitness.
She is also dedicated to helping grow and develop others and is constantly on the hunt for new umpires to take up the whistle.
Since Andrea James became the President of Selwyn Netball Centre three years ago, she has truly bought Poipoia to life by fostering collaborative relationships with the executive committee, members of Selwyn, the Mainland Zone, Selwyn District Council, Selwyn Sport Trust, Selwyn Sport Centre and Sport Canterbury, in order to ensure the best outcomes for Netball.
And for this she has been acknowledged as the 2021 Volunteer Administrator of the Year award.
Having to give up umpiring due to injury, James went on to be Umpire Administrator at Selwyn and now coaches umpires to New Zealand level.
She also undertakes the overall management of the Selwyn Netball Centre which in itself is a huge role.
During the Covid-19 Alert Levels, James did an exceptional job in working with the committee to come up with a playing schedule that was easily managed at Level 2 across both the playing areas and for all grades which involved up to 2500 players.
James has initiated change in the way the executive interacts with the clubs and its members. She was instrumental in creating, adopting and monitoring a new strategic plan for netball in the district based on community feedback through a VOP (voice of participants) survey which she instigated and followed through with.
On the back of an exceptional range of commitments on her resume, Year 13 student Tyler Campbell has been awarded Youth Volunteer of the Year.
Apart from playing, Campbell is also involved in coaching, managing, umpiring and administration in a volunteer capacity at her Waiuku Netball Centre.
She is the youngest member on the Centre’s Management Committee and besides having responsibility for her portfolio, she was required to do ‘Executive Duty’ (opening the centre, running the day and closing up at the end of the day) on a number of Saturdays during the season.
This year, she stepped into the role of ANZ futureFERNS Coordinator, embracing the role wholeheartedly and led the Year 3 and Year 4 programme from start to finish on a weekly basis.
She also umpired at least two games every Saturday this season as well as during rep and college trials, achieving her Zone qualification.
Campbell coached and managed a school team and has started working through her Community Coaching Award 1, already displaying that she is a reliable, diligent coach encouraging players in a positive and affirming manner.
Armed with boundless energy and enthusiasm, Campbell is an industrious, hard-working volunteer and is always on hand to help with any jobs, big or small, at the Waiuku Centre.
Highly commended volunteers:
Liz Freeman (South), Kate Smith (Central), Alyssa Manilal (Northern).