Early in the year, Cadbury ran a promotion celebrating volunteers.
This involved submitting the name, a brief CV, and a photograph of the person you were recommending as a top volunteer and Cadbury would turn this into a cute, animated cartoon video featuring that person. This seemed like fun, so I submitted details for both Cushla and Finn and received the promised videos in return. They were everything I assumed they would be, and we had a good chuckle over them. I posted them to my social media and, it seemed that that was that.
I’m immensely proud of the volunteer work Cushla and Finn do, it’s simply outstanding, and our communities benefit greatly from their mahi and from the terrific work of others who also give up their time freely to keep the wheels of our society running smoothly.
I sent Finn’s information based on the fact that he volunteers for virtually everything at his archery club, for working bees, for the Halberg and Manaaki Games, and for literally everything that comes up.
I also sent one for Cushla and it was great too.
The videos came and we loved them, but what we didn’t know was that it was actually a competition to find the top volunteer in each area and Finn won the Cadbury Best Volunteer award for the entire Auckland region.
I was gobsmacked.
It’s not often I don’t read the small print, but, in this instance, I seem to have missed this important consideration. The prize for each of the winners was an all-expenses paid trip to Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington for the chosen volunteer and for a ‘plus one’, flash hotel accommodation for both, along with tickets to the second All Blacks versus Australia rugby test.
Plus chocolate.
Choosing his ‘plus one’ would’ve been a hard choice for Finn and I suspect it would have been Cushla – that would have been my recommendation – had she been available, but she wasn’t as she was leading the Archery New Zealand Olympic Solidarity ‘Youth with Potential’ Camp on the same weekend. Finn was also scheduled to attend the camp and to lead some of the sessions, but he wasn’t indispensable, and Cushla was.
I am persona non grata with Archery New Zealand, so I had no role in the camp at all – but that’s another story.
So, somewhat by default, I became Finn’s ‘plus one’. Had Cushla been available I would have stepped aside because my disability would have made it difficult for Finn as he’d have felt responsible for me, and I would never have wanted that.
We had a ball in Wellington. It was a great game, and what happens on the field stays on the field.
Yes, there was chocolate, and I enjoyed watching Finn devour his gift.
dykiegirl 