Only the best for mum

JONATHAN CAMERON/Taranaki Daily News

MUM'S THE WORD: Pene Chadwick celebrates with her son, Andrew, 21, who won her a trip to the Gold Coast as part of a national Mother's Day video competition.

A Waitara man has struck it lucky again – but this time he's sending his mum overseas.
Andrew Chadwick, 21, won a nationwide Mother's Day competition which means his mother, Pene, will be winging her way to the Gold Coast.
He has previously won trips to Disneyland and Fiji, 12,500 airpoints and 480 cans of the energy drink V in competitions.
"You just have a look and see what it would cost to win and then just go for it," he said of entering promotions.
His latest win was in the 2n'5 shop's competition, which asked the public to vote on videos made by children about why their mum was the best.
The video involved Ms Chadwick's children thanking their mum for 8000 loads of washing, 400kg of produce from her vegetable garden and 100 hours of stoking the fire.
Ms Chadwick was thrilled with the prize. "I wasn't meant to know about it but friends kept saying to me I'll go to the Gold Coast with you if you win, so it wasn't a secret for long. I wasn't surprised though because with Andrew, anything can happen," she said.
Mr Chadwick said he entered the competition as a way to say thank you to his incredibly supportive mother.
"She's always given us the freedom to try new things. There's five of us so we're a bit of a handful but she just keeps charging along," he said.
A Facebook campaign was launched to get more votes – he said he had trained his friends pretty well in voting during competitions, now.
Ms Chadwick, who teaches deaf students, has left the country only once, when she visited Norfolk Island "donkey's years ago".
She plans to take the trip to Australia in the next school holidays, with plenty of relaxation on the cards – and possibly the theme parks, too.
"I just might go to them, don't dismiss it," she warned her son.