UFNSW Award Winners

Each year UFNSW recognises individuals who have made a significant contribution to the community.

Past recipients of the awards have been:

Wally Crocker epitomises what the UFNSW Awards are about, namely, a significant contribution to the ultimate community. He is one of those players who manages to make things happen, and gets involved without a big fuss.

In the last year Wally was assistant league organiser for the new Inner West League that ran over the Summer season. He was also a captain of one of the teams in the new Darlinghurst (DUFF) League, where the captains were significant drivers in keeping their teams enthusiastic and the participation up each week. In addition, Wally is the organiser of Umlaut Ultimate, a Sydney club side that went to Nationals in 2009, and is going again in 2010. Umlaut Ultimate even has a snazzy web site - set up and maintained by Wally.

Wally is someone who gets ultimate happening at the grassroots. He is always involved and he has great enthusiasm, drive and quirky sense of humour. He would be a worthy recipient of a UFNSW Award.

Nadine Constantinou was nominated for her work with universities and women's ultimate. Nadine is a quiet achiever and her main focus is UNSW but she has helped all universities with organising events and sharing relevant information for all those new keen bean players with an interest to play and get involved. Nadine doesn't even play the uni tournaments with UNSW, she stays involved to ensure the club continues its momentum. UNSW went very quiet a few years back and she has woken it up! Nadine also helped organise the Southside women over a difficult period. Nadine is positive and recognised as a fair and spirited player.

I'd like to nominate Naomi Yorston for her work in getting ultimate up and running in her school. Naomi teaches at Greystanes High and has helped bring ultimate to schools outside the northern beaches/north shore area where ultimate has traditionally been played. Mrs Yo (as they call her) fed the enthusiasm of her students and coached them to the point where they felt confident enough to join in at youth nationals. Last year she helped the first ever U17s boys team sign up to compete at the event. The boys are now U17 boys Australian champions. They were so committed they got up early enough to catch a train and two buses to the fields and camped out at a local players house over night so they could be there first thing the next day. Naomi came and watched both days and also went and bought the boys water when they forgot to bring their own bottles.

Wes Foster has been a good player for many years now, having played at both Open and Mixed Nationals consistently for the last 4-5 years. While his playing standard has steadily increased, Wes has "gone back to the basics", offering to coach, captain and "manage" a beginner team in Division 4 (Visually Appealing) for the last 3 seasons. As the team has improved it's skill level, Wes has stepped back from the Captaincy of this team, and now remains as a player who does the bulk of his work coaching these still relatively new players in how to improve their own play, and to show some on-field leadership, further reducing the "need" for his presence, as other players on the roster step up, thanks in large part to his efforts in coaching and player development.

At the beginning of this current NSL Season (Summer 2009), Andrew Maidment (the Division 4 Commissioner) and I chose to run 2 weeks of beginners league training in place of the first 2 weeks of games. The intention was to split the players into 2 groups, with Andrew taking 1 group, and myself taking the other. However, due to the unexpectedly large number of players who showed up (approximately 80 out of a Division of 140), having only 1 "trainer" for each group was not going to be practical. At this time, Wes offered to help run one of the groups, and with the assistance of Anthony Dowle, Wes took roughly half of the group for about an hour, working on some basic throwing skills, playing some games, and getting the group used to throwing and catching a frisbee (most of his group were complete beginners). In week 2, Wes had prepared his own session plan for this complete beginners group, in addition to the session plan that had already been prepared.

Wes also set about writing a "summary" of the rules for these new players to read. Since Ultimate Frisbee is a self refereed sport, it is up to the players themselves to have read the rules. However, new players are highly unlikely to read the entire set of rules, especially in the format they are most often seen in (a 20 page document!). Thus Wes wrote up a 3 page summary of the major rules he felt players were most likely to need during a game, and distributed this to each team captain at the end of the 2 week beginner training sessions. These were then filtered down to the players on each team.

It is because of the type of initiative shown above, combined with his relaxed personality and his willingness to spend so much of his own time in coaching, developing and leading new players into our sport that I believe Wesley Foster deserves to be recognised by a UFNSW Annual Award.

Tim Keighley is an unassuming and softly spoken volunteer. Tim used to run regular training at Macquarie University while he was a student but even now he has finished studying has continued on since no one has raised their hand to do it. He takes on odd coaching jobs that we have been struggling to find coaches for and always willing to help out even if it isn't his forte'. As the relationship has grown between Macquarie University and Ultimate in general, Tim has acted as a liaison point. He is responsible and reliable which is important when trying to maintain a strong relationship with them. When Junior Nationals and the Juniors Training weekend were held at Macquarie University, he was the first to raise his hand to help. He assisted with all the menial tasks that must be done but seem like extras (like the lunches, confirming fields, etc.) and he stayed both days just making sure there was someone there to take care of an emergency. Tim is also involved with the Hills league and he always helps organize his Div 2 and 3 teams. He is the guy that will set up fields every week and never complain. He is unassuming, keen as mustard about Ultimate and volunteering, and completely deserving of our recognition.

Alex Leung was the UFNSW Universities officer in 2005/06 and even though he has not been officially acting in that capacity he has continued to be involved. Alex is another 'behind the scenes' worker, keeping things ticking over on email and encouraging the universities around the state. In fact it was Alex who was partially responsible for the universities role not being filled because people were scared of having to 'do the amount of work Alex did'. Another deserving recipient of the UFNSW Award.

not awarded

• Lisi Jarrott (Women's)
• Fiona Myer (Juniors)
• Simon Farrow (everything)

• George Atton (Hills League)
• Mel Gangemi (Sydney Uni & lots of other stuff)

• Dave O'Brien (Manly League)
• Nikki Shires (Juniors)

• Graham McKay (Web)
• Lisa Waters (Treasurer for 10 years)