Grow Pro
Just over a year ago I received the SportNZ Susie Simcock Future Leaders’ Scholarship. This award is to celebrate, promote and encourage the work of a young (yep I still qualify) emerging leaders in the sport and recreation sector. Read more about the incredible Susie Simcock whom this award was named after. Now the SportNZ awards, for those of you that are new in that world, are pretty much like the Olympics of the sport and recreation professionals awards. Let’s digress a bit here into how on earth I became a ‘professional’ in sport and recreation.
We’re going to head back to 2002 (not actually when that cute photo of me was taken, it’s just there for streamer appreciation) when I was finishing up high school (again that would be weird if I was 6 when I finished high school) in Arizona, the internet wasn’t really a thing on my radar, you could buy a $4 burrito, and I knew all the words to every Green Day song (also the Backstreet Boys, just in case you were getting the impression that I was actually cool). It was a rule in our house that I would go to university so I reluctantly agreed and then quickly got stoked when I found out you could actually get a degree in people and the outdoors (aka Parks and Recreation). My mum wanted me to be a dentist, but then she reluctantly agreed because at least I was going to college. You see, we weren’t a family that did ‘outdoors’ things and in fact the first time I went camping was school camp at the age of 12. It was that trip that sparked my love of the outdoors and the power that nature has to bring us together.
At 18 years old, I got a job as a summer camp counselor (how american of me), went for my first mountain bike ride, and realised that I had found ‘it’. That ‘it’ was my ikigai. While it took up until a couple years ago that I learned there was actually a term for this ‘it’ of mine, I knew that all I wanted to do was work with people in the outdoors and do some real good in the world.
So after moving to NZ in 2005, I found my community in Wellington, in mountain biking. It was here in my new home that I wanted to dig in and do some good. But to do some good and be actually useful to this community, I needed to learn a bit more. I grabbed every opportunity to get better… went to all the mountain bike skills courses I could find, started a weekly riding group that evolved into the (still going!) women’s cycling club (yay Revolve!), did a post graduate in education to learn how schooling worked in NZ, started a MTB tourism company (RIP Bike Wellington, I was way ahead of my time), guided cycling tours in remote destinations (gosh I still miss those donuts of Kyrgyzstan), a MTB skills course company with a bestie (Joyride 4eva!…. well not really, that’s wrapped up now too), and then the stars aligned to start WORD. Now we’re talking!
It turns out that when you get niche into a subject, opportunities come your way. I think it also helped that I am a woman, and there weren’t lots of us in that space (gosh that’s a whole topic in itself), and I also had (and still do have) this deep down belief that the world needs more women needed to be in leadership roles, specifically in the mountain bike world. So I just kept saying yes…writing articles in magazines, joining the team that developed the first NZ MTB instructor qualifications, organising mountain bike events, training and assessing MTB instructors around the country, and becoming a MTB technical expert for auditing.
Gosh that makes it sound like I am a crazy yes person. Maybe. But I do know that I have a rather long resume that would help me get a job in like 2 fields… and yes, my mum is proud.
Now let’s get back to Susie…. as I stood up there at the SportNZ awards in front of hundreds of professionals in the industry, and it dawned on my that I am now, in fact a professional. A rather youthful professional (obviously), but a professional nonetheless. As if this award couldn’t get any better… it came with a chunk of money to do something ‘professional’. I know I know, what on earth does a recreation professional due for professional development?
I’m off on a study tour!
FYI- my bike skills are better than my artistic skills.
It’s a big wide world out there, and if WORD is to be the best youth mountain bike organisation in all the land, it’s time to see what the best are being best at. Over the next 6 weeks I’ll be visiting youth MTB organisations around America (yep, those orange stars above that in no way are geographically accurate). I’m heading on an adventure to discover 5 key things:
Research- competitive vs non competitive youth MTB programmes
Teen girls- joining and keeping!
Youth Leadership- being an authentic youth MTB organisation at all levels
Organisational admin (back end systems, financing, instructor training, governance)
Share the love....how can we all in this industry help each other
EEEKKK! This is very exciting! I’m so looking forward to connecting with others that share the WORD values.
A huge Big Ups (aka Thanks in WORD world) to SportNZ for this once in a lifetime opportunity to grow as a pro. And also to the WORD Board for saying go for it, and the WORD Leadership Team for holding down the fort while I’m away, you’re the best!
xoxo
Ash
