A couple of exciting New Years announcements

from & for this side of the Pacific anyway.

Sophie was awarded the honour of being a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the New Years Honours List.

Just to explain here is a little background on the NZOM. It is basically taking over from the British Honours system of Knights & Dames (no chance of a slip of the sword then ;o)

Background

The New Zealand Order of Merit, an Order of Chivalry, was instituted by Royal Warrant, dated 30 May 1996, and comprises five levels. On 10 April 2000 it was announced that The Queen had approved the discontinuation of titles (knighthoods and damehoods) within the Order and that in light of this decision had approved new designations for the first and second levels of the Order. The various insignia (badges, breast stars, miniatures and lapel badges) for both levels remain unchanged.

Here is a link to the full article that appeared in the paper: Golden Girl Order of Merit

She has also been nominated as a finalist for the for the Halberg Awards in February. The Halberg Awards is basically a sports persons Oscar. Awards are given for different categories & teams etc, with a Supreme Sportsperson award also available.
Last year it was won by a able bodied woman shot putter, who also competed at the Beijing Olympics & brought home a Gold Medal. She's apparently the current favorite for this lot of awards too.
That could be pretty exciting ;o)