The BAANZ Presidents Award

This year BAANZ is starting a new award called The President's award. Going forward this award will be given out at the BAANZ AGM each year - however this year it seemed more fitting to give out this award to the person in front of their ballooning family on the last day of the Balloons Over Waikato Fiesta.

This award is designed to recognise someone or a group that has gone above and beyond for ballooning. It could be for those unsung heroes that just quietly beaver away in the background, a safety champion, mentor of the year, a ballooning evangelist, could be for someone representing NZ on the world stage and winning the world champs...

Why This Person?

The person that has been chosen this year actually falls into a number of different categories; they have been involved in ballooning for many years, they have been piloting for years and they are willing volunteers to be crew, they have been contributing to BAANZ in many different ways, they have been involved in the Waikato Balloon Club for years, they have been instrumental in getting new people involved in ballooning, 

But recently they have been a full-on evangelist! In the last few months they have visited multiple schools, even rest homes and other clubs like the Scouts with her walk through balloon. not only putting up the balloon and taking thousands of people through it, she also does a full on presentation with huge amounts of memorabilia, laminated photos, log books, instruments etc and takes the time to explain so much to everyone there.

She doesn't do this for the accolades. She does it because she loves seeing balloons in the sky and because she believes in the magic of our crazy hobby. 

It was an absolute privilege to present the first-ever BAANZ President’s Award to Gail Dryland!