Does it really matter?

A wicked easterly was blowing off the Hokonuis, through our open gazebo and up my three-quarters while I called the end of the Moonshine Cycle race to a hypothermic crowd huddled in the food tent, holding their hotdogs for heat, and I wondered, does it matter what I do on this microphone, writes Gerry Forde in this week's Southlander.

The plan was to call each finisher by name. There were 600.

A woman on walkie-talkie called through the numbers as they came around the corner.

Three women in the gazebo then scrambled through 35 sheets of sticky labels, unpeeled the right one, stuck it on a board and I yelled out: "Go big Brian from Balfour!".

And a woman pedalled across the line glaring at me.

Annoyed at my mistake the team took its eye off the ball and the easterly blew the sheets across the finish line.

For two hours they numb-thumbed their way through sheets while I blue-lipped the commentary.

Does it really matter?

The following week I got some feedback from Verdon College that one of the teachers was rapt to get some wraps going past the line.

At the Waikaka Cavalcade, entertaining the big family crowd with lolly scrambles, I called, "A prize for the first one who comes to me on piggy back!"

The quickest father-daughter pair came up front and I had a rush of blood I took off, laughing over my shoulder! And there were all these old dads ridden by cavalcading kids hot on my heels.

I hadn't won a race for years but I beat one by dodging to the left, another to the right, then smacked into a teenage pair, which sat me on my bum.

Does anyone care that I tried?

Later that week I heard one wee girl was delighted she had won a Southland Spirit of a Nation lip gloss.

Ten years ago doing spot interviews up Esk St for Mercury TV people would avoid us by hiding behind planters and ducking into undie shops but this day a guy actually approached our camera.

"You filmed my dad up here recently." I thought, here comes a complaint. The bloke continued quietly: "He died this week and that's the only film we've got of him; can't say how much it means to us."

What we do — it matters.

» Gerry Forde is the Venture Southland regional identity brand manager.

- © Fairfax NZ News