During the recent Team Up Reflections conference in Nadi, Gill Gemming was presented with the ONOC Merit Award. The award was presented to Gill in recognition of ‘exceptional contribution to Olympism and sport in Oceania.’ The presentation of the award was carried out by the Executive Director of ONOC, Mr Inoke Bainimarama.
Gill stated “I am honoured to be recognised by the Oceania Olympic Committee with this award. My passion has been always been to develop people, especially volunteers. They are the backbone of all sport. The motivation for being involved in the original project group to create the Oceania Sport Education Program (OSEP) was to provide opportunities in communities across the Pacific Islands where coaches, officials and administrators could get free training and ongoing support, through their NOC. Often there may have only been 1 Hockey Coach in a remote community but through OSEP, they could work with other coaches of other codes in that community, and be part of an ongoing support network. My involvement started in 2007 as the team sport representative of Organisation of Sport Federations of Oceania (now Oceania Sport) on the Oceania Olympic Education Commission. The impact of OSEP on building capacity and capability across the Pacific has been amazing and I am proud to be part of that journey.”
Congratulations Gill on this outstanding achievement. This is a fine recognition of your mahi in this space.