Lesley Morrison Community Spirit Award

NOMINATE HERE

2022 Winner - Bec Niejelke

The winner of the 2022 Lesley Morrison Community Spirit Award is Bec Niejelke. Despite only being part of the Active Farmers community for 3 months Bec's impact has been phenomenal and received three nominations!

Bec joined Active Farmers in October this year as a Trainer in her home town of Pinnaroo. Bec received three nominations for this year's award speaking of her selfless dedication to the health and wellbeing of her community.

Like Lesley did, Bec wears many hats within her community. Bec is a farmers wife, a mother of 3, a registered nurse, HEAL program provider and the local Active Farmers Trainer. Not to mention the exhaustive list of other volunteer roles Bec takes on!  With a passion for preventative health, Bec is forever going above and beyond to support and encourage her community to live a healthy, active lifestyle.

She is constantly giving so much of herself to others and the community, whilst still helping operate a farming business and take care of her young family.

Bec's passion for rural health and Active Farmers has stretched beyond Pinnaroo in the few short months she has been part of our community – with Bec’s advocacy five additional small farming communities (Lameroo, Parilla, Tintinara. Keith and soon Murrayville) now benefiting from Active Farmers services.

Bec will receive a $1500 Voucher for Harvey Normans for being this year’s winner. We wish to extend our thanks to Harvey Norman for making this possible!

About the Lesley Morrison Community Spirit Award

This Perpetual Award was established in 2021 to honour the memory of Active Farmer, Lesley Morrison.

An adored wife to Powlett (Vic) farmer Scott, a loving mother to three beautiful children Jaspa, Olivia and Lucy and a dedicated community volunteer, Lesley’s life was cut short by a tragic accident on 25 May 2021.

A founding member of the Bridgewater Active Farmers Community, Lesley embodied Active Farmers, always the advocate - forever encouraging others to come along to a class. Lesley often spoke of how grateful she was for Active Farmers, a ‘place’ where she not only regained her fitness and established life-long friendships - but most importantly where she found emotional and mental health support.

After suffering horrific burns to her arms and legs in 2017, Lesley’s strength and determination shone through. As soon as she was able, she attended class, despite being limited in movement and in chronic pain she would adapt and do what she could. Often, she would sit in a chair and lift a weight, she simply grit her teeth and got on with it. Her physical wounds took more than two years to heal and in Lesley’s words the people at Active Farmers are what ‘mentally, emotionally and physically got me thru one of the hardest times of my life’.

A very unassuming sole, Lesley would not be aware of the impact she had on others. She inspired everyone with her determination, she always made new faces feel welcome, ensured everyone felt included and worthy and brightened the room with her smile, her humour and her activewear.

Through her kindness, generosity, compassion and resilience Lesley helped and inspired so many. Lesley’s legacy will however live on through the Lesley Morrison Community Spirit Award.

This award is our opportunity to celebrate those who give so much to others in our Active Farmers community. To acknowledge their efforts that may otherwise go unnoticed and to say simply say ‘thank you’.

2021 Joint Winners

Claire Harrison and Tracey Webb from Bridgewater on Loddon, Victoria.

We are delighted to honour the life of Lesley Morrison and announce the winner of the Lesley Morrison Community Spirit Award!

Although we originally thought there would be one winner, we decided to award joint winners for this years inaugural award.

Claire and Tracey certainly are ‘partners in crime’ and go above and beyond to make their own and Lesley’s community of Bridgewater a better place.