Andrew Leslie: Nuku Ora CEO on the new model for the Wellington Regional Sports Awards

After uncertainty over their future, the Wellington Regional Sports Awards will return this year under a new organising model.

Nominations are now open for the awards to celebrate excellence, contribution and community spirit – honouring over 40 years of sport’s impact on the Wellington region.

Nuku Ora CEO Andrew Leslie joined Adam Cooper to discuss the focusses for this year's event, to be held in late August at Wellington College.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's the perfect start to your Saturday. The All Sport
Breakfast with Rutherford and Bond, Toyota and King Toyota, your
home of Hybrid used talks B ten.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
To nine here on the All Sport Breakfast. For the
last few years, I've seen a bit of a debate
around the annual Wellington Sports Awards put on by Nuku Order,
who formerly known as Sport Wellington. Now there was some
uncertainty over whether the awards would even continue, but a
bit more of a scaled down version will continue this
year and beyond with a new organizing model. This year's
awards now locked in for the end of August and

(00:31):
nominations now opens and a chattle bit more about this.
Nuker Order CEO Andrew Leslie is with me. Morning to you. Andrew. Firstly,
I guess must be a good to have a way forward,
whether the awards or locked in for another.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Year, as it certainly is. Good morning, Adam. The awards
coming up on the twenty eighth of August at the
Allen Gibbs Center at run Into College. And yeah, I
guess the big thing this week we've opened nominations and
it's great to have the event rolling again. Last year

(01:07):
we had our EEBE partners Nati Toyer and South Iowa
came on as joint naming right sponsors for the event,
which was a radical development, so that the EWE awarded
their own awards that night as part of the program.

(01:28):
And this year we've expanded that partnership even further by
bring our relationship with ATOA toa FM, so that came
along and doing the event management for it. So yeah,
some radical changes happened in there. The event used to
be at the Tesby Arena, so we undertook a review

(01:52):
in twenty twenty three and as part of that, the
feed bat we've got from the sports sector was that
to make there be in a bit more ecpense, and
so we've scaled it back so that's more accessible to
attent in terms of ticket prices, but also some of
the retreats, some of the categories, so that enables recognizing

(02:13):
not only the athletes and the teams at that sort
of more high performance end of the spectrum, but also
recognizing the amazing stuff that's happening at that grassroots community level.
So few changes over the last couple of years we've
brought in.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I know there was a point where there was a
bit of a debate around whether and awards would even
take place. So has there been some pressure from the
community to still have some awards even if they've taken
a slighting new look.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, absolutely, and that was probably that was the big
outcome of the review. I mean, the awards themselves that
this event is the sports sector's event in lookal order
as critiachy of the event, you know, we've been delivering
this event for many years, but we needed to sort
of step back and have a lock at how the

(03:04):
events fitted with where Nook Order as heading as an organization.
That we needed to obviously talk with our community about that,
and came through very strongly from the sports sector that yeah,
they still want to to recognize and celebrate achievement excellence

(03:25):
in sport and that you know, they they were very
encouraged of Nook Order continuing to deliver the event. So
you know, we responded to that and you know, along
with the other feedback that we got from them, which
we've integrated into sort of creating a more a more
sustainable and more accessible event.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Yeah. Talk about accessible, I mean, who who ultimately are
you sort of you're mainly targeting here, have you got
a sort of you know, a person in mind or
sort of you know certain I guess, you know, not
just as sports, but I guess some one an average
person that you want to be specifically targeted and feel
included in these awards that may not have been in
the past.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, I mean, we really want to see interest growing
from that that club level. So you know, by making
the events, you know, the cheaper to attend and also
being able to you know, put yourself forward into these
categories as well, we hope it really opens up interest

(04:29):
at that at that club levels and you know people
that are that are doing great stuff at that grassroots level.
Not it's not just about recognizing at that high performance level.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Andrew, thanks for your time and great that the awards
are all set to go. Andrew Leslie, the CEO of NUKA,
Order with us for.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
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