Secretary's Shield awarded

At last night's club AGM, the Secretary's Shield was awarded to Barbie Chan.

Having responsibility for awarding the Secretary's Shield is undoubtedly one of the particularly rewarding aspects of my role as secretary of the Serpentine Running Club. The Shield was donated by James Godber, the then Honorary Secretary, in 1986, and is awarded annually to the club member or members who, in the personal judgement of the Honorary Secretary, has greatly contributed to the club, above and beyond what might be expected from an ordinary member.

This is always a difficult decision, as there are so many people in the club who give their own time to make the club the success that it is, whether training, marshalling or officiating.

There are a few in particular I would like to mention this year – the Facebook team for managing the Facebook group which is ever growing in popularity; James Edgar and the Serpentimes team for their work in putting together now 3 issues of the online publication; Jan Farmer who, after 20 years as women’s vets track and field captain, is stepping down and Catkin Shelley is taking over from 2017; Karen Hancock, who this year ended her tenure coaching the Tuesday Dome/O2 session, although she continues to coach the Greenwich Hills session; and, of course, all our other coaches, officials and other volunteers.

But the person this year I have decided to award the Secretary's Shield is Barbie Chan, who sadly is leaving the committee, but who has done so much amazing work over numbers of years with the juniors – as Andy Robbins has been saying for a while, he thinks she is the first person in many years actually to make a fundamental difference to the club in the way she's brought the juniors along. And, so far as the juniors are concerned, on the committee we are really keen for interaction between juniors and adults coming on to the track at Paddington – after all we are all members of the same club and juniors are the club and team members of the future. So, the shield is awarded to Barbie, for all her help and support generally but particularly in achieving great results with the juniors.

Sue Barty
Honorary Secretary
hon.secretary@serpentine.org.uk

Submitted: 29 September 2016

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