Spring Date Set For The Forsyth Barr Hawke’s Bay Sport And Recreation Awards

The Forsyth Barr Hawke’s Bay Sport and Recreation Awards will now be held later in the year due to COVID-19 to ensure that an in-person event can go ahead.

The new date for the Forsyth Barr Hawke’s Bay Sport and Recreation Awards Gala dinner is October 29 with the nomination period from 1 April 2021 to 30 September 2022.

Sport Hawke’s Bay General Manager, Ryan Hambleton said it was important to make a decision now, rather than delay and hope that the current outbreak ends and restrictions on gathering numbers are lifted by the current date of 28th May.

“We want to physically bring the sport community together as a celebration and that desire means that the best way is to delay the awards until later in the year.

“We had an online awards event in 2020 and we managed to host an awards ceremony at PGA in 2021, but the Central Hawke’s Bay Sport Awards had to move to an online event in that year, so it’s best to take out any uncertainty.”

“This also creates new opportunities and means that we can better align the awards to summer sport codes, which in the past have been judged on performances from a half season.”

The decision has been made to move the awards to the end of October for the following three years, through to 2025.

Hambleton says the decision also took into consideration the challenges the sport sector is facing, as well as the community.

“It’s been a tough two and a half years and we are now dealing with a Covid outbreak at a time when winter sport is getting ready to start. We do not want to put additional workload on the sector and requesting them to nominate on top of this.”

Major sponsor Forsyth Barr is fully backing the decision with Matt Carney saying it will be great to celebrate various team and individual achievements and acknowledge the tireless work by many volunteers in the active recreation and sport sector.

“Hawke’s Bay has some amazing talent. Our sportspeople have delivered some fantastic national and international achievements that deserve to be celebrated at a real-life event. Our team can’t wait to be part of the celebration.”

Hambleton says the change in date of the regional awards will unfortunately impact the CHB Mail Central Hawke’s Bay Sports Awards with a decision on a date to be announced in the coming weeks.

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