Christchurch City Council a three-time winner in recreation awards

Christchurch City Council staff have won two awards and a scholarship at the New Zealand Recreation Association (NZRA) annual conference in Queenstown.

The Council's Kiwiable coordinator, Trisha Ventom, and arts advisor Marlene Le Cren accepted the association's Outstanding Programme Award for the Jolt project, a mixed-ability dance programme for people with disabilities and the able-bodied.
Leisure planning projects officer Paul Cottam received the NZRA's Outstanding Reseach/Planning Award for Council's Recreation and Sport Indicators Project.

Regional parks team manager Kay Holder is the recipient of the association's Maunsell Scholarship Award. The $3000 scholarship is to further the professional development of an individual, organisations or the industry. It will allow her the opportunity to research everyday problems confronting managers and policy makers in the parks and recreation industry. The NZRA says its Awards Programme was set up to acknowledge organisations and individuals making exceptional contributions to the New Zealand recreation industry and to the health and vitality of their environment and community.

The NZRA website is at www.nzrecreation.org.nz

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>