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Sport BC looking for local sport heroes
Alison Shepherd
Wednesday July 21, 2010 Volunteers are unsung heroes and now Tumbler Ridge’s sport volunteers are about to get their moment in the sun. Sport BC is accepting nominations for the 2010 Community Sport Hero Awards. The ceremony marks the first time the Community Sport Hero Awards will travel to Tumbler Ridge.
“We are excited to bring the award to Tumbler Ridge. It’s been on our hit list for awhile,” said Sport BC’s Executive Vice President, Rick Christiaanse.
The awards were established in 2001 and were handed out in a handful of communities. Since then they have grown to include nearly 30 communities across B.C. and this summer seven awards will be handed out across the province.
Christiaanse said sports have the largest amount of volunteers in Canada, second only to social programs, with more than one million people volunteering their time to various sporting activities. He said the award recognizes the unsung heroes in sport: the coaches, officials and others who dedicate countless hours to help amateur athletes across the province.
“We recognize smaller communities rely more on volunteers than big cities which might have some money for paid staff,” he said adding less recognized sports rely even more heavily on a key number of volunteers to continue.
Christiannse said people in any sport are eligible for nomination and what he and the selection committee are looking for is a summary of who the nominee is and why the nominee deserves the award.
Christiannse said he has attended many of the award ceremonies and while he enjoys each one, he especially enjoys the ceremonies in the smaller communities because, he said, everybody knows each other so the ceremonies are more personal.
The nomination form, found online, is used to not only help the Sport BC committee to determine the award nominee, it is also used to help craft the ceremony.
“We use the information from the nominations to create the award and presentation. We like to talk about the award recipient and make it personal,” Christiannse said.
To be eligible, nominees must meet the following criteria:
Be an individual from the local community who makes a voluntary contribution to sport through coaching, officiating, boards, administration, special events, etc; Be an individual (not an organization or foundation); and Has been, or continues to be, a dedicated sport volunteer for a minimum of eight years.
Nomination forms are available at www.communitysporthero.ca and nominations will be accepted until Friday, July 30.
Sport BC and EnCana will present the award in Tumbler Ridge on August 17.
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