KNYSNA NEWS - Knysna-Plett Herald was last weekend awarded the District 9350 Public Image Award by Rotary International.

This came along with two awards that were handed to Rotary Knysna during the Rotary International District 9350 Assembly and Conference, held in Cape Town from 20 to 22 April.

The assembly-cum-conference is held every year, bringing together Rotarians from all over Rotary District 9350, which covers the western half of South Africa, the whole of Namibia and all of Angola. It includes 58 Rotary clubs, 19 Rotaract clubs, 102 Interact clubs and 46 EarlyAct clubs, as well as thousands of volunteers who fly the Rotary flag high with pride wherever they go.

The event is an important part of the Rotary District 9350 calendar as it provides Rotary clubs with the chance to come together after a year of volunteer work that changes the lives of countless people.

Rotarians from far and wide therefore flocked to Cape Town's President Hotel for a weekend of networking and reporting back on the work of the past year.

A special part of the event each year is the awards ceremony, which is aimed at acknowledging the very best work done by Rotarians during the current Rotary year.

Awards are given for outstanding work done by both individual Rotarians and Rotary clubs as a whole. Rotary Knysna was the recipient of two of these awards – the Best Club Event Marketing Award and the Koos Burger Environmental Award.

The Best Club Event Marketing Award is awarded to the club that "ran an event and where the event publicity strongly promoted Rotary and raised its profile among those who saw the marketing materials", and Knysna Rotary earned it for the 2022 Knysna Splash Festival.

The Koos Burger Environmental Award is awarded based on criteria that focus on being sustainable, being managed by a team, impacting the community in a variety of ways, and more. This was awarded to Rotary Knysna for their work through the Rotary Knysna E-Waste Community Environmental Project throughout 2022/23.

There are also awards that are set out to acknowledge general members of the public who are not Rotarians, such as media houses, that can be recipients of the Public Image Award. Media houses must be nominated for the award by a Rotary club, and Knysna-Plett Herald was very kindly nominated by Rotary Knysna, for our coverage of their endeavours and projects carried out in 2022/23.

The Public Image Award is awarded to "the owner/editor of the media that provided the most effective coverage of Rotary events that raise the profile of Rotary during the current Rotary year. This award can be awarded to traditional media or social media publishers". The announcement was made on Saturday that this year the award was handed to KPH.

Rotary Knysna President George Coon hands the certificate for the Best Club Marketing Award to Rotarian Andrew Finn.

Rotarians Margi McAlpine (left) and Louise Pannell (right) receive the certificate for the Koos Burger Environmental Award from Rotary Knysna President George Coon.

Note from the News Editor:

The Knysna-Plett Herald team would like to thank Rotary Knysna for nominating us for the Public Image Award. Being nominated is a great honour in itself, and to have it awarded to us by Rotary International District 9350, even more.

We are grateful for the work that Rotary carries out within our communities, and know and trust that many others are too.

We look forward to covering many more fantastic Rotary events and initiatives in the future. Thank you, Rotary!

KPH News Editor Blake Linder receives the District 9350 Public Image Award from Rotary Knysna's Head of Public Image, Carol Wilkinson.

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