“I’ve been trying to future-plan.
‘‘I’m 79 now and if anything happened to me we would have needed a replacement ready to go now,” he said.
“So we did train someone this year, and they have taken over my role.
“I will still be on the committee and so the committee will direct the manager on what they want to achieve and need to do,” he said.
His successor is Vanessa Harvey, who has been very prominent in the Gore country music scene, working as the New Zealand Songwriters Trust chairwoman and event manager for the Gold Guitar awards.
“She has embraced the role, she’s doing very well,” Mr Geary said.
“It’s about developing a team environment with the committee and working together as a team leader.”
He was “very satisfied” with how the awards had developed over the years, particularly the committee’s and awards’ tolerance to change.
“We’ve had to develop and institute change at various times right through those 30 years, and it helped the quality and the reputation of the event to grow.
“I think word of mouth is our biggest success.
‘‘A contestant can truly enjoy themselves, they talk about it and I think that helps with the entries we get as well.
“We just look forward to next year to continue to improve all the time,” he said.
Fittingly, last month’s awards had a record 863 entries and several sold-out shows.
