Tauranga club scoops supreme award

Tauranga Marine Model and Engineering Club has won the Supreme Award at the 2016 Trustpower Tauranga Community Awards.

The Awards were announced and presented at a function at the Mount Maunganui Golf Club on Monday night.


Representative of the Tauranga Marine Model and Egineering Club with their award. Supplied photo.

For winning the Supreme Award, Tauranga Marine Model and Engineering Club received a framed certificate, a trophy and $1500 prize money.

Tauranga Marine Model and Engineering Club now has the opportunity to represent the district at the 2016 Trustpower National Community Awards, which are being held in Rotorua in March 2017.

In total, Trustpower has given away over $5000 to various community groups through last night's awards.

Trustpower community relations representative Emily Beaton says Tauranga Marine Model and Engineering Club have been a part of most local children's childhood thanks to their fantastic maintenance and running of the miniature train at Memorial Park.

'The miniature train is hugely iconic for Tauranga folk, but the volunteers behind it do tend to fly a bit more under the radar.

'In the last few years they concluded a $380,000 track extension to their amazing model railway, which totalled over 40,000 hours of labour from the members.”

At the completion of the project, a sub committee was formed to organise the National Model Engineering Convention which was held across five days.

The event was hosted, organised and financed completely by the members.

The National Convention meant even more hard graft from the volunteers, and saw them upgrading locomotive handling facilities, painting the station and installing additional railway sidings – this meant working bees every Sunday over the two years leading up to the convention.

'It's a real asset for the Tauranga community to have hardworking volunteers like these guys are,” says Emily.

Other winners at last night's Trustpower Tauranga Community Awards were:

Youth Spirit

Finalist: Hayden Van Beek, Tauranga Boys College

Finalist: Micah Church, Bethlehem College

Finalist: Lydia Callinan, Aquinas College

Winner: Grahame Woods, Tauranga Boys College

Heritage and Environment:

Runner up: Johnson Reserve Care Group

Winner: The Rock Papamoa

Health and Wellbeing:

Commendation: Tauranga Riding for the Disabled

Runner up: The Wishforfish Charitable Trust

Winner: Under the Stars

Arts and Culture:

Commendation: Tauranga Arts Society

Runner up: Tauranga Musical Theatre Inc.

Winner: A Night Before Christmas

Sports and Leisure:

Runner up: Mount Scottish Society

Winner: Mount Maunganui Lifeguard Service

Education and Child Youth Development:

Commendation: Society of St Vincent De Paul

Runner up: Youth Search and Rescue Tauranga

Winner: Papamoa Surf Lifesaving Club

Supreme Winner: Tauranga Marine Model and Engineering Club

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