Thanking and rewarding your volunteers this season can be as quick and simple as taking a moment to write a few kind words on a piece of paper.

Mid Canterbury Netball is again running its Volunteer Shout Outs this season, a simple and popular initiative that’s been running for three years now, with the support of three local businesses.

Mid Canterbury Netball centre manager Erin Tasker said volunteers are the backbone of any sporting organisation at a local level and all too often the time and effort they put in can be taken for granted.

“Our volunteer shout outs concept was pretty simple – we printed out some nomination forms and put a box on our netball desk on every competition day and night for people to pop their nominations into, and then we do a heap of draws,” Tasker said.

Local businesses were approached to donate prizes, and three happily obliged and have been with the initiative since it began. Nigel Heney and the team at Columbus Coffee Ashburton kindly donate a voucher to be given away each week to a volunteer of the week, and then there’s a monthly prize for a coach of the month and umpire of the month. The coach of the month prize is kindly donated by iconic Mid Canterbury fashion retailer Chicago Joes, while local bank NBS – who have been the key supporters of Mid Canterbury Netball’s umpires and umpire coaches for some years now – provide the umpire of the month prizes.

“We then announce the winners on our social media channels and give the winners a bit of a shout out to let everyone know how amazing they are. It’s super simple and easy to do from our perspective, and it’s great to be able to give something back to so many vital people within our netball community,” Tasker said.

The Volunteer Shout Outs box will be out on the netball desk from this week, and will stay there until the end of the season. The first lucky draw for the first Columbus Coffee volunteer of the week will be conducted next week.

Article added: Thursday 01 May 2025