Scholarships have been awarded to seven athletes via the Kauri Club to help them advance their sporting careers and athlete development over the next year.

The recipients are Bailey Edwards and Wikitoria Rogers (both rugby), Charlotte Thorpe (Dressage), Charlotte van der Zwan (Equestrian) and Jacqui Cameron (Hockey). Flynn Venmore (Squash) and Canon Puriri (Athletics) were also awarded funds to support them with their travel. Both Canon and Flynn are currently receiving support via the recently established High Performance Sport NZ regional performance pod.   All the athletes have either been selected to represent New Zealand, are a part of New Zealand development squads or achieving nationally at a very high level in their chosen sports.

Through the generous support of Alan and Jackie Lints in partnership with the Kauri Club, the Kauri Club has been able to offer these annual scholarships over a 12-month period where $8,000 was granted in total to the above athletes. To date, the Kauri Club has distributed over $280,000 to talented Northland Sportspeople since the Kauri Club was formed in 2000. 

The objective of the fund remains the same, to support talented young sports people in Northland (16 – 20 years) and give them every encouragement to advance their sporting careers and develop as an athlete and as a person. In following the Balance is Better principles of athlete development, the scholarships aim to assist athletes over a year financially to further their development as an athlete. The scholarship money is to be primarily utilised to invest back into their learning and development with the aim of the athlete growing and applying their learning to their sport and throughout life. Each athlete will also be provided support by Athlete Support Advisor, Ady McKenzie who is a well-known local high-performance athlete that represented New Zealand throughout her career as a triathlete and runner.

Athletes will also be connected to the High-Performance Sport NZ Performance Pod that has been established to regionally support pre-high-performance athletes with support services such as strength and conditioning, nutrition, and athlete life skills along with their coaches.