Hutt City’s Te Aroha Softball Club secures Matariki award

The New Zealand Amateur Sport Association has announced that the 2025 Te Tohu Tiketike o Matariki award has been made to the Te Aroha Softball Club, Waiwhetū, Hutt City.

The award was announced by Association Patron, Andy Leslie who convened the award selection panel.

The award, decided in collaboration with Te Upoko o te Ika, Aotearoa’s first te reo Māori radio station, acknowledges a community sport organisation which has embraced te reo Māori as part of its kaupapa (a framework rooted in Māori values, knowledge, and cultural practices, used to guide various aspects of life, including education, research, and community development).

The award also acknowledges National Volunteer Week (Te Wiki Tūao ā-Motu), with the recipient reliant on volunteers to deliver sport to its local community.

Andy Leslie (a member of the New Zealand Softball Team at the World Championships in Mexico City in 1966) notes “softball as a sport is a wonderful way for communities to come together, in an inclusive, fun environment. The Te Aroha Softball Club has extended that environment to integrate te ao Māori into the game, acknowledging the whakapapa of the local area and its sporting community.”

Association Chairman Gordon Noble-Campbell added “as a club with a history that goes back over 80 years, Te Aroha Softball Club’s strength and longevity can be traced back (along with many other Te Aroha sporting codes and affiliates), to Te Aroha Hutt Valley Māori Association, which originally focused on bringing together Māori who had moved to the Wellington region.”

The Association continues to be active in supporting Te Aroha Softball Club, and its junior and senior teams which have achieved success at local, national and international levels.

Adrian Tangaroa Wagner, General Manager of Te Upoko o te Ika shared “community sport is an important way for te reo Māori to become more familiar to a larger number of people, with this year’s award again acknowledging how this can become an integral part of our overall approach to building healthy communities through sport”.

Previous awards have been made to: in 2022, the Otaki Surf Lifesaving Club Inc. (Horowhenua Kapiti), in 2023, the YMP Hockey Club (Poverty Bay), and in 2024, the Papuni Otautahi Boxing Trust, (Canterbury).