This morning I had the great honour of letting the user group leaders know the outcome of the Community Leader of the year award.  The award is intended to recognise the hard work community leaders do in New Zealand.

These community leaders are the backbone behind every community event around Microsoft Technology in New Zealand and work hard so that developers and IT professionals can stay up to date and keep growing their skills so that they stay relevant and maintain their expert status.

The results are:

3^rd Place- Matt Smith – SharePoint User Group in Christchurch

Matt Smith runs the SharePoint user group in Christchurch and in his first year has done very well.

Attendance of the Christchurch SharePoint User group at time of judging was within a meeting or two of the more established Wellington SharePoint User group and given the group didn’t start until several months into the year, it is obvious that Matt has done a spectacular job of getting the group up and running.

Matt wins a Microsoft Desktop 8000 valued at over $400.

2^nd Place – Kirk Jackson - .Net User Group in Wellington

Kirk Jackson has been a consistent user group leader for a number of years and has done a phenomenal job of driving the group forward.

The group has been meeting monthly on a consistent basis for some time, and this year has become the most consistent leader in the community – leading the only group that met in both December and January.  In addition, Kirk has added a second meeting each month.  These second meetings have been equally well attended. 

Kirks exploration of new group ideas and his consistency resulted in 138% growth from last year. 

Kirk wins an XBox 360 Elite Gaming Console valued at $899

1^st Place – Rodney Lake - .Net User Group in Tauranga

Rodney has done a great job of driving his group forward this year. Like Kirk, he has moved to meeting every fortnight and has been meeting every month (with the exception of January).  This is a huge step for any group to take, but particularly for a more remote town - you can understand it in the main centres.

In addition the Tauranga user group has made a significant contribution to the overall user group attendance this year being between second and third most attended user group in the country – which is amazing considering the catchments area available to him compared with the developer population of Auckland or Wellington.

Particular highlights for Rodney include a great turn out at the community road trip, catalysing the Tauranga SharePoint User group (which has been running since January) and achieving an amazing 594% growth.  This growth reflects both the increasing sized of each user group attendance and the increased regularity of meetings.

Rodney wins a $2500 travel voucher to spend as he desires.

Please join with me in congratulating the winners!