Published on 09 March 2022
About 25 people turned out today - on a glorious Ōhau day - to celebrate the presentation of an award to the Lake Ohau Village community by FENZ. Waitaki District Councillors joined those celebrating the community’s work on fire preparedness. The presentation has suffered from 'interruptus covidus', as it was way back in August 2021 that the Village community was first notified it had been nominated for a FENZ Te Kei award. The nomination was summarised by FENZ as: "recognising the community’s commitment to preparedness which resulted in a swift successful evacuation as the wildfire approached your settlement last year. The Lake Ōhau Alpine Village community have been shortlisted for the Risk Reduction Award."
And… drumroll please…they won! Mike Grant, FENZ Region Manager Te Kei / Te Pou Whakahaere a Te Kei, was pleased to be the one to let the community know they had won the Risk Reduction Award. FENZ has been trying to hold an awards ceremony to present the Te Kei awards but had to cancel these due to covid restrictions on events. But today, everything came together.
Community representative Viv Smith-Campbell reports, “We had a lovely morning for the award - and a great turn out. It was wonderful that Councillors Bill Kingan and Colin Wollstein were able to come, as well as Ahuriri Community Board Chair Vicky Munro.
The award was presented to Rachel Baker and Malcolm McMillan who were instrumental, along with many others, particularly Craig Ovenden, in setting up the fire plan and making sure everyone in the community knew about it. They also made sure we had yearly fire safety training sessions with Rural Fire and now FENZ.”