Dunedin, New Zealand, my city - my people

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

I did not win...

You may remember that I was embarrassingly nominated for the "Star Community Spirit " award. I said that I would let you know how I did. Well I attended the function last night and was not the winner. (Phew! relief!) They did read out my name and a gave a quick resume of what I did, so I guess I was "shortlisted" at one stage. I must admit there was the little competitive part of me listening to what the winners did and I was in my mind adding up the hours I spent on Habitat sites, doing drop-in etc. and the 20 years I have been doing Christmas Day Dinners and comparing. But basically I sat there terrified that I would be called up the front of this bunch of people. It was indeed humbling to sit amongst such company and to recognise that a great deal of effort is given on a voluntary basis to help our community to be the caring community it is.

My social blooper of the evening went as follows. This young blond lady came up to me, read my name tag, introduced herself, said she was from the "Star" and welcomed me. I dumbly said, "Are you a reporter for the newspaper." "No" she replied, "I am the editor!" I guess I was meant to know who the editor was! She ran the evening. She knew who I was and that my wife had won the award a few years earlier. I had obviously been a topic of conversation.

The other interesting thing about the evening is that they had prepared name tags. Everybody else had just their first name and second name, no title. Mine had "Rev. David Brown". Apart from the fact that I am generally known as "Dave" these days, I hated that it had that "Rev" in front of it! I am me, Dave Brown.... people go funny talking to "Rev's"! or mostly just avoid them.

1 comment:

Anthony said...

What? No "community spirit" Blog Award? You'd be a shoo-in. For the specific post category, I nominate the story of Harry and Mary.