Perseverance rewarded

Press, 8 December 1976, Page 20

Perseverance rewarded

[ The first New Zealand air- ; woman to qualify for the j Duke of Edinburgh Gold Award will be presented with a certificate by the Duke at Government House, Wellington, during the Royal j tour in February. She is Air-j jcraftswoman Paula Greenem, formerly of Stewart Island. i Six years of hard work! 'and perseverance through' I many setbacks were re-: : warded when she was presented with the gold award recently by the Chief: of Air Staff (Air ViceMarshall C. L. Siegert) at the R.N.Z.A.F. Woodbourne, near Blenheim. The gold award is the highest level of achievement in the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme which requires young people to meet minimum standards in five fields: service to the community; physical activity; interests; expeditions and residential. The last section requires the candidate to live in a camp or hostel environment for a minimum period. Paula Greenem met all reI quirements by sheer determination. Soon after beginning her community service with the Invercargill police : she had to move to Christ- . church for medical treat? : ment, which delayed her programme for nine months. When she returned to In--1 vercargill in September, 1972, she took up her com- ( munity service again by I doing watch-keeping duties :at the Invercargill Police I Station. In June, 1973, Paula joined i the R.N.Z.A.F. and after recruit training was posted to Woodbourne. She was then able to take up police ser- . vice ‘again with the Nelson , police. She then gained experience working in police cars, on the beat, attending ; accidents and in general in-1 quiries.

Paula had lived most of her life in the bush, and had been involved with searches; on Stewart Island. So she turned to search and rescue for .the expedition section of the scheme. But as the first female applicant to join an R.N.Z.A.F Search and Rescue (S.A.R.) team she had to overcome a few prejudices; before being fully accepted.! She completed two S.A.R. | exercises in March and May,!

1974. She chose marksmanship for the interest section of the programme and was actively involved in it for 18 months. She completed the physical activity section in 1974 in the Woodbourne Sporting 100, an organisation in which points are gained in a wide variety of sports. To qualify for the certificate a competitor must gain 100 points in one month. From there Paula began parachute training but illness forced her to give up all sport before she had made any jumps. Feeling that the gold award was now beyond her reach, Paula put all her energy into band work. She [played the tenor drum in the : R.N.Z.A.F. Woodbourne 1 Band and the Blenheim I Municipal Band, and gave all her spare time to practice. Last August Paula toured Manawatu and Hawke's Bay with the R.N.Z.A.F. Bandi which qualified her for the. residential phase of the award. She then found toi her surprise that her parachute training was sufficient to qualify her for the physic cal activity section. This i meant she had completed all' the requirements for the gold award. So six years after she accepted the challenge, Paula Greenem reached her goal.

plenty of wool for knitting and crocheting as well as materials for needle-point and rug-making for passing any leisure time she has 1 during the long winter. “There probably won’t be time to do any handcrafts at all,” John Oliver put in. “We are going to be verybusy.”