move2nz.com wins NetGuide Award for Best Community Website!
8th May 2008
 On May 7th Tammy and I
headed up to Auckland to attend the NetGuide Awards - the longest running and
most prestigious web awards in New Zealand.
The evening was held in the Auckland Convention Centre right by the Sky Tower.
We got there early and before long the place was absolutely packed with the
who's who of Internet in New Zealand. We met some great people and chatted for
a while before we were all lead into a large room for the ceremony. Rows of
seats accomodated around 300 people and we headed towards the back to watch the
proceedings quietly.
After a couple of speeches there were 24 awards including the Top NZ Site and
the format was that the finalists would be announced by
Rabon Kan and shown on two huge screens. Then the winner would be
announced and, while they were walking up to the stage a comment from one of
the people voting was read out. The winner then had their picture taken
receiving the award (a small yellow cube) before making a short
speech.
 Thankfully they
were all short too and Rabon was quite funny. However when it came to
'Best Community Website' our pulses were racing. The finalists were read out
including move2nz (you could hear "Who?" echo around the hall) and then we were
announced the winner. Tammy and I sat for a second or two in shock.
Problem: No Speech. Never once having though we might
win I hadn't even thought I might need one. It was a long walk to the
stage with my mind racing furiously. Luckily it wasn't taped as I have no idea
what I said but Tammy's grin said it all.
A great night
One of the best things of the night was that when I got up the lady sitting
next to me leant across to Tammy and said "Tammy? I'm a member of your
website!". This was really amazing as she had used the website in 2005 to help
her move out.
The rest of the evening was great - wandering around with our yellow box
everyone wanted to hear about move2nz and we had some great conversations
including with the guys at Stuff (who run, among other things, The Press
newspaper) who sponsored our award.
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