Volunteers keep region's sport alive

Selwyn School sport volunteers Mere Lockington, left, Bettyann Moulder, Lavinia Shepherd, Dawn Riddler and Tayla McKenzie Bethell.

Sports Bay of Plenty hosted its annual breakfast event this week giving sport and recreation club volunteers the opportunity to attend, network and listen to a guest speaker.

There were more than 20 sporting clubs represented at the Volunteer Breakfast held at the Rotorua RSA.

Among the audience were sport coaches from Selwyn School, who came together representing the different sports they help organise for the children at the school.

Three members of the group won spot prizes of SportMaker gear during the breakfast.

The guest speaker, Ariki Tibble, the event manager of Crankworx, spoke about what went on in the background of event management and wowed the audience with footage of the Crankworx Festival held in March.

There are 41,000 people paid to work in sport in New Zealand, but 750,000 are unpaid, giving more than 50 million hours. In the Bay of Plenty about 48,000 adults volunteered for sport.