Sport NZ’s annual Connections Conference will be held in Wellington next week. This event is an opportunity for leaders from across sport, recreation, government and business to come together and obtain new insights and ideas, share inspiration and collaborate on the critical issues we are facing as a sport and recreation sector.

As part of the conference, Sport NZ also hold their annual New Zealand Sport and Recreation Awards, which aim to capture and acknowledge the great work that occurred across New Zealand’s sport and recreation sector over the last 12 months.

This year as part of the awards a new $10,000 Future Leaders Scholarship will be awarded to an emerging leader.

Sport NZ believes that maintaining a ‘pipeline’ of emerging leaders is critical to the future success of New Zealand’s sporting sector. They also see the development of these young leaders as essential to ensure they are best equipped to deal with the ever-changing landscape of sport and recreation in New Zealand.

The winner of the scholarship will receive the funding to go towards furthering their own leadership development.

Sport Northland is very proud and excited to announce that our very own Anna Markwick has been named as a finalist in this category.

In releasing the finalists’ names, the judges took the opportunity to mention that they had an overwhelming response to this scholarship and that the standard was extremely high. They added that just to be named as a finalist puts them right up there with the best future sports leaders in the country.

Anna has worked for Sport Northland since 1995 and has held numerous roles in that time, including Active Living Manager, Recreation Manager, 10,000 Steps Manager and Holiday Programme Manager.

She has also been part of the Sport Northland Leadership Team for 14 years and is currently the Community Sport Manager, responsible for over 30 of the Sport Northland whanau across many key parts of Sport Northland’s operation.

Anna has been responsible for implementing a number of key initiatives for Sport Northland (many of them award-winning initiatives), including 10,000 Steps, Water Safety, Project Energize and most recently, driving and advocating for our community-led approach.

Anna is also holds a Diploma in Sport and Leisure (NorthTec) and a Bachelor of Sport and Recreation (AUT). As well as her day job, Anna walks the talk as a very popular instructor of Les Mills group fitness classes at Sport Northland’s Kensington Fitness.

We wish her the best of luck on Monday night.