He is in the running for official of the year and volunteer of the year as part of the Rower of the Year awards.

The Riverside resident is among a group of six finalists for the former and five finalists for the latter.

Symons will travel to Sydney for Friday night's awards ceremony in Penrith.

"It came as a bit of a shock because it was a bit out of the blue," Symons said of becoming a finalist for the first time. "Getting nominated for two awards is out of this world."

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The humble club stalwart said he was honoured.

"You tend to just work away and do things because they have to be done," he said. "You don't think of the amount you're doing or how other people see it.

"Obviously at the moment somebody has seen it and has been pleased with what they've seen and nominated me."

Symons, who has been an official for about 10 years, has officiated at national events.

"In a fortnight, we've got the Australian nationals and that's eight days of flat out work," he said.

"The first time I did that, I didn't see 8.30pm for the first three nights. You're just exhausted and you think 'what have we done all day apart from sort of wander around' but it does take it out of you."

He explained officials took pride in their performance.

"As a boat race official, our goal is to get the best regatta we can, you take ownership of it," he said.

"You want it to be as good as you can make it in whatever role you're doing at the time. And if you keep that in mind that you just want it right, then you come out with a pretty good result."

Symons explained officiating could involve being in the judges' tower, umpiring on course, starting and aligning or being the top referee responsible for a regatta.

The national level official was referee at the Schools Regatta 3 on the weekend at Lake Barrington.

The award finalist takes on numerous voluntary roles beside officiating, including maintenance.

"I do some coaching, generally it's kids that come to me because they want a little bit more than what their school is offering," he said.

"Therefore, you have to work with the schools and when the kids are available - when they're not rowing for the school - you can give them a hand and just work on technique and things like that."

He coaches rowers from St Patrick's College, Scotch Oakburn College, Launceston Church Grammar and Riverside.

He is also a keen contributor when it comes to fundraising for the Tamar Rowing Club (TRC).

"Our major fundraiser for the year is sheep manure and I tend to get right into that because there's a market out there," he said.

"What I do is basically sell most of it because I've got ads on Gumtree and Facebook and people then contact you and you take it all over the north."

He said the club raised about $30,000 last winter.

He also assists at Rowing Tasmania weekend regattas and transporting equipment is among his key roles.

The one-club rower has been at TRC since 1972.

"Last Sunday was Schools Regatta 3 which used to be named North West Schools," he said.

"And the under 14 boy's quad 50 years ago was my first ever race at that regatta. So the under 14 quad, which I had half a crew in on Sunday, that marked 50 years of my rowing.

"I watched the race very closely."

Two of the boys he coaches were in a boat for that race.

It was moment for Symons to reflect.

"Fifty years ago, the sport was absolutely nothing like it is today," he said.

"You learned to row in four and you went to a regatta three times a year and rowed your fours race and went home. Now that might be to Franklin, row your four, go home again.

"Now the kids have so much more, even the youngest ones get three races, they get singles, doubles and quads. And so many more regattas.

"Schools are involved in I think it's 15 regattas for the year which is massive compared to what it used to be years ago."

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