2019 Blues Awards Winners

Award for the Most Outstanding Contribution (Innovation) 

Rebecca Jelley 
Rebecca co-founded the Ultimate Bowls Championship as a way to revitalise the sport of lawn bowls. She introduced a new format that allowed scoring off every bowl and increased the speed of the game. She also made technological improvements through the use of LED screens, and tablets for umpires. The company’s first event this year attracted over 1 million television viewers from around the world.

Award for the Most Meritorious Performance (Arts and Cultural) 

Clovis McEvoy
Clovis was selected to present on the subject of compositional practice for visual music at the highly selective Electroacoustic Music Studies Network conference in Florence. His ‘A Study in Virtual Reality – Active Observation’ was presented at the International Computer Music Conference in South Korea. The prestigious conference has been running for 44 years and is the preeminent annual gathering for computer music researchers and practitioners from around the world. Clovis was also selected to exhibit at the MusInfo Conference in Bourges and the Diffrazioni Music Festival in Florence.

Award for the Most Outstanding Contribution (Service and Leadership)

and

Major Pasifika Award 

Sivendra Michael
Sivendra delivers social leadership training across communities in New Zealand and the Pacific as one of only eight master facilitators for the Active Citizens global programme. He works with local youth organisations on building trust and understanding around issues that concern their communities. In 2018, he secured more than $NZ 50,000 in grants for the programme. Sivendra is a young leader who is passionate about meaningful participation and has represented young Pasifika people at many international events.  He has been shortlisted for the Young Global Leaders 2020 and the One Young World Queen Fellow. He prioritises serving his community, despite the challenging schedule involved with pursuing PhD studies.

Award for the Most Meritorious Performance (Sport) for Taekwondo

and

Sportsman of the Year 

Riley Phillips-Harris
Riley competed in the ITF Taekwon-Do World Cup in 2018 and came away as a gold medallist and World Cup Champion in -78kg sparring. He was ranked number one in the world in 2018. In 2019, Riley competed in the ITF Taekwon-Do World Championships in Germany, making it to the quarter finals. Riley is currently ranked eighth in the world.

Sportswoman of the Year 

Isla Norman-Bell
Isla has competed in touch football and rugby sevens. She was a member of the NZ Touch Blacks Open Women's Team that competed at the Touch World Cup in Malaysia. In 2019, she also played in the NZ Warriors NRL Touch Premiership Open Women’s Team and the NZ Black Ferns 7s Development Team, which competed in Japan and New Zealand.

Major Māori Award 

Turuhira Hotene
Turuhira performed alongside her rōpū Ngā Tumanako at Te Matatini ki te Ao (the biennial national kapa haka championship). This year, Wellington hosted 48 teams from New Zealand and Australia in a five-day competition. Ngā Tumanako made the final and went on to be crowned World Champions of Kapa Haka for 2019. As a result of winning, Ngā Tumanako were invited to fly to China in September and Hawaii in June to perform at the World Polynesian Festival.