The Vineyard Gazette won 17 awards in the annual New England Newspaper and Press Association contest this year, including nine first-place awards for excellence in journalism and advertising. The awards were announced at the annual banquet held by the small newspaper press association in Boston last weekend. The contest saw nearly 3,000 entries from small daily, weekly and biweekly/monthly newspapers in the six-state region of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. Newspapers are judged in daily and weekly categories by circulation.

Nonprofit organizations on the Vineyard looking for volunteer help can now advertise their openings for free in the Vineyard Gazette.

This week the Gazette is introducing a new classified advertising category called Volunteer Opportunities, which will appear in both the print edition of the newspaper and online at mvgazette.com. Any tax-exempt charitable or arts organization wishing to advertise for unpaid help may do so without charge, said Jane Seagrave, publisher of the Gazette.

The Vineyard Gazette has named Joel Greenberg as managing editor, the newspaper’s publisher Jane Seagrave announced this week.

Mr. Greenberg comes to the Gazette after 20 years at The Los Angeles Times, where he served as science and medicine editor. For the last two years he has worked as a writer in the media relations office of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The Vineyard Gazette won 27 awards in the annual New England Better Newspaper Contest this year, including general excellence, the top prize awarded in the winter contest for small newspapers for 2011. “An outstanding, fascinating weekly newspaper. Superb newspaper writing. It should be studied in journalism classes on community newspapers,” judges wrote.