Volunteer of the Month 2025
June 2025
Kate Wimsett from Katikati Playcentre
I would love to put forward Kate Wimsett from Katikati Playcentre as Volunteer of the Month. She is the heart of our Playcentre and ensures every day that playcentre is set up with different play areas and everything behind the scenes is handled. She also covers off on all jobs assisting all the other mums teaching us along the way. She was also completing her level 4 qualification for playcentre while having three young kids and being the main organiser for functions, open days and more! She is an inspiration to all Katikati Playcentre Mums and we appreciate all her hard work.
Kind regards
Jo Stewart
Katikati Playcentre Mum
May 2025
Dominique Chiu from Onehunga Playcentre
I would like to nominate one of our members, Dominique Chiu for her rangatiratanga/ leadership in our centre’s education programme. This is now her 4th term with us and she has already organised 3 PE Courses at our Centre. She is thriving through her education and motivating our new members to come along with her and to support each other in their learning. We are very thankful for her active and deep contribution.
Ngā mihi mahana
Emmanuelle Maucor
April 2025
La Ward from Ellerslie Playcentre
We would like to nominate La Ward from Ellerslie Playcentre for Volunteer of the Month.
La has been the glue holding together Ellerslie Playcentre for the last few years. She took on the coordinator role in 2022 until 2024, when the role was disestablished for a teams structure and in preparation for her son graduating this year. During this time, she often took on multiple roles, fielding enquiries and tasks on everything from visitors to health and safety, to enrolments, to communications, to events, etc. She is the fountain of knowledge for everything about our centre. Everyone’s default is ‘ask La’.
On top of the countless hours she has put in to ensuring our centre continues to operate and meet requirements, La puts in extra time in the afternoons, evenings and weekends thinking of ways to improve our centre, cleaning and organising, ideas for play, and doing amazing full centre setups for events such as Easter and Christmas. She has donated many items to the centre, from housekeeping items to toys, to books, and more.
What La is best at, though, is people. She does an amazing job of connecting with all people, understanding them, knowing about what is going on in their lives, following up on past conversations, knowing their interests, and acknowledging their contributions. She has been instrumental in welcoming new members to our centre and creating a village we are all proud to be a part of. She finds ways to support members in parenting, playcentre, and in general life. La is also our connection to our alumni, checking in with all of them on occasion, too.
All our tamariki are La’s biggest fans. They all want to play with her, give her things, tell her what is going on for them, and involve her in what they are doing. She has a genuine interest in each of the tamariki, asking them questions and often returning the next session with a little present, a question about their interest, a relevant book to loan them, or something else she thinks they will find interesting. She does a wonderful job of celebrating the tamarki, too. Often, La receives invitations to children’s birthday parties, independent of her son.
Our centre would not be thriving the way it currently is without La’s care, dedication, and commitment to the centre and its members. She will be sorely missed when she leaves later this year, but we know that she will never be far away when her people and village are still here.
Thanks
Angela on behalf of the Ellerslie Playcentre whānau
March 2025
Sarah Obata from Howick Playcentre
I’d like to nominate Sarah Obata from Howick Playcentre. Sarah has attended our centre since 2020, and from the moment she joined us, she was making active contributions to the running of our centre.
Sarah has an eye and ear for the operational and procedural side of things – a lot of the onerous and complex stuff that overwhelms and intimidates most members. She is our patient treasurer, repeating herself again and again to help us understand cash flow summaries. She has spent hours poring over grant applications, acquiring our centre vital resources we couldn’t afford to buy, and now oversees many of our officeholders as a team leader and part of our centre management team. On sessions, Sarah displays the knowledge and experience she’s gained from the many Playcentre courses she’s taken the time to attend.
We’re so grateful to have her and her tamariki as a part of our playcentre whānau, and think she is deserving of this award.
Rebekah Marcetic
Howick Playcentre
February 2025
Annette Brownlee from Eden-Epsom
Annette Brownlee has been coming to Eden-Epsom for 15+ years initially with her nieces and nephews and then as volunteer, now with her grandchildren and as a volunteer on days to help us license.
She has nurtured many children, buddied with them on independent sessions, given so many parent a wee break on tough days and kept our centre open five days a week.
On top of this she takes on many of the day-today tasks to keep the centre running including but in no way limited to doing the lawns, notified fire drills, pest control, goldfish care and pretty much anything that needs to be done around our centre. Not to mention the best cheese ball this side of the ‘90s.