Pride of NZ: Busy all the time — plus the day job

Kevin Randles has been involved with Scouts for more than 30 years.

Kevin Randles

Community Spirit category: Few dedicate as much time to their community — and in particular to young people — as Kevin Randles.

The Marton man has been a Scout leader for more than 30 years, is a Duke of Edinburgh Hillary Award co-ordinator, president of the Rangitikei Hockey Association and is involved with mountain safety and the Marton RSA.

In among all that, he has to find time for his job.

The Marton School teacher has been involved with Scouts since joining as a boy. He became leader of the Marton group after moving to Rangitikei, then the zone leader.

Kevin Randles

He is also national director of the scout photography school.

"I just enjoy working with young people," Mr Randles said.

He spent 20 years in the Royal New Zealand Air Force before retraining as a teacher.

But despite his many hats, he said all his activities seemed to tie together in one way or another and feed off each other.

"I think the main thing is I enjoy the outdoors."

His busy schedule involves a lot of evening and weekend voluntary work.

"There's not a lot of downtime — if you talked to my wife, she'd say I'm never home."

His nomination acknowledged the sheer amount of time Mr Randles put into helping his community.

"There is hardly an evening or a weekend goes by when Kevin is not involved in doing something for his community," the nominator said.