Vot­ing in the Fourth Annu­al Welling­ton­ista Awards is open from Decem­ber 1–15. Then come find out the results at our Awards Night at Mighty Mighty on Decem­ber 17!

To vote, vis­it this page.

Our nom­i­na­tions for Welling­ton­ian of the Year are all peo­ple who make our city a brighter, bet­ter place to live. Their con­tri­bu­tions are as var­ied as Welling­ton itself, and we’re so proud of them all.

Styx and Knitsch of Out­door Knit: Styx and Knitsch took knit­ting onto the streets and made the town a brighter place. Some of their projects includ­ed the “It Will All Be OK” fence, beau­ti­fy­ing a Vivian Street chain-link with hearts, spruc­ing up a grove of Cuba Mall trees dur­ing Car­ni­val, and encour­ag­ing peo­ple of all ages to pick up nee­dles and give it a go them­selves. 

Chris Mor­ley-Hall: Welling­ton would­n’t be Welling­ton (or at least not the fun, colour­ful, cre­ative Welling­ton we like to think of) with­out the Cuba Street Car­ni­val. And we would­n’t have the car­ni­val with­out Chris Mor­ley-Hall and his par­ty-pow­er genius.

Matthew Wil­son: This young thing of bound­less ener­gy has had a tough year. His cafe burnt down (Maranui) but the rebuild is hap­pen­ing — HOORAY! Wil­son start­ed ear­ly, set­ting up Deluxe Cafe when he was just 19 and his entre­pre­neur­ial spir­it will not be damp­ened by some flames. His staff love him and he’s cre­at­ed some of the best spots in town for Welling­ton’s cre­ative types includ­ing these guys, while also giv­ing many of them jobs! Matthew Wil­son, we salute you! 

Mar­tin Bosley for the City Mar­ket: Mar­tin Bosley is a man who knows a thing or two about good food, and many peo­ple were very hap­py when he (along with Rachel Taulelei) found­ed the City Mar­ket. A per­fect com­pli­ment to the fresh pro­duce at the neigh­bour­ing Wai­t­an­gi Park Mar­ket, City Mar­ket is a splen­did way to spend a Sun­day morn­ing.

Stephanie McIn­tyre: Look­ing out for those peo­ple who are unable to look after them­selves: it’s not glam­orous, it’s not high fly­ing but the work that Stephanie and the extreme­ly ded­i­cat­ed team at Down­town Com­mu­ni­ty Min­istry do moves us to the core. They help those in Welling­ton who are most in need and most in risk, and with the Street Peo­ple project and Project Mar­gin they make a dif­fer­ence in peo­ple’s worlds. Then DCM goes around and make it easy for us to give with their annu­al book­fair, where thou­sands of us buy box­es and box­es of books — and the result is our shop­ping makes peo­ple’s lives bet­ter. Stephanie and the team at DCM make the world a bet­ter place.