Awards showcase Western Australia’s contribution to Outdoor Recreation Sector

Outdoors WA has announced the winners of the 2020 Western Australian Outdoor Recreation Sector Awards. These awards showcase the inspiring work and passion that has been put into promoting the outdoors to the WA community during a challenging year.

Outdoors WA advise that “Outdoor recreation continues to grow from strength to strength as without structured sport as an option during lockdown there was a noticeable increase in the number of Western Australians using our trails, the river and the ocean as a place of escape and recreation for their physical, mental and spiritual health.

“These awards saw a large number and diversity of recreation and outdoor groups from metro Perth, the hills and regional Western Australia nominated for each of the six award categories. All of these nominations were then narrowed down to three finalists for each award.

Outdoors WA Executive Officer, Jamie Bennett was highly impressed with the quality and innovation of programs, events and business structures, let alone the inspirational people that devote a large amount of their time and passion into helping people fall in love with our outdoors.

Finalists from all over Western Australia came together for the awards presentation on Thursday 3rd December.

Elder Barry McGuire captivated the audience with his brief Welcome to Country speech, noting that a real Welcome to Country actually takes two weeks.

One attendee of the event Tracy Lindsey from adventure hiking company, Off The Beaten Track, stated that “There’s a reason that this room is buzzing with chat and laughter and that is because people that work in outdoor recreation do it because they absolutely love it. It’s not for the money. It’s for the ability to get out and share and respect our beautiful land with others in a fun and healthy way. We genuinely love what we do.”

The awards categories and winners were presented by Dr Tony Buti - MLA for Armadale.

The winners were:

●             Emerging Outdoor Leadership awarded to Matthew Yates

●             Outstanding Outdoor Organisation awarded to the Great Southern Centre for Outdoor Recreation Excellence (Albany)

●             Outstanding Contribution to Outdoor Learning saw two winners Kalamunda Senior High School and Hale School

●             Outstanding Outdoor Education Practitioner awarded to Peter Treeby (Northam Senior High School)

●             Encouraging Participation Award awarded to Break The Boundary (encouraging people with physical disabilities to go mountain bike riding)

●             Innovative Outdoor Program or Event - awarded to St Marks Anglican Community College

Outdoors WA hopes that “these awards inspire all in the industry to keep inspiring others to enjoy Western Australia’s beautiful outdoors.”

Outdoors WA is supported in its work to get more people active and outdoors by the WA Department of Local Government Sport and Cultural Industries.