Lesley Milne has spent more than six decades shaping New Zealand rowing, and on Monday evening in Auckland her lifetime of service received its latest recognition. She was awarded the 2026 Sir Eion and Jan, Lady Edgar Lifetime Achievement Award at the New Zealand Sport and Recreation Awards on 8 June.
The award honours individuals who have made an outstanding and enduring contribution to sport and recreation in Aotearoa New Zealand. For Milne, it caps a journey that began in the 1960s, when women's access to the sport was severely limited.
She took to the water at North Shore Rowing Club on Lake Pupuke, one of the few Auckland clubs that accepted women at the time. In 1974 she was selected in the first women's crew to represent New Zealand at the World Rowing Championships, competing in the Coxed Four in Lucerne. Domestically, she won eight national titles with Auckland Rowing Club before adding gold and silver medals at the 1994 World Masters Games.
Strong as those on-water achievements are, it is her work away from competition that has left the deeper mark. As Secretary of the New Zealand Women's Rowing Association from 1967 to 1973, Milne was central to the historic merger of the women's and men's national rowing bodies, a structural shift that helped lay the foundations for the opportunities available to New Zealand women rowers today.
Her governance contributions ran for decades. She served on the New Zealand Rowing Association Council for 11 years and became the organisation's first, and to date only, female President, while also leading at a regional level as President of the Auckland Rowing Association and through numerous governance, welfare and volunteer roles with Auckland Rowing Club.
Milne's influence extended into officiating as well. She served as inaugural Chair of the national Race Officials Association and later as Rowing New Zealand's Race Officials Coordinator. The education pathways, development programmes and internationally aligned standards she helped establish continue to support rowing events around the country.
Her service had already been recognised through appointment as a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, with the Governor-General presenting that honour at an investiture ceremony in 2024. She also holds Life Memberships of Rowing New Zealand, the Auckland Rowing Association and Auckland Rowing Club.
The Sir Eion and Jan, Lady Edgar Lifetime Achievement Award adds another significant honour to a contribution that has touched every corner of the sport, from athletes and officials on the water to the governance structures that support them.
