We made 2 major announcements to reward dedicated club members at the Christmas Party on Friday.

Life membership awards

We had the pleasure to announce 3 new life members. The club has a tradition of rewarding life membership to volunteer members who have contributed their energy, time and humour, making a significant personal contribution to the Club’s affairs. Each year the committee may elect up to 2 life members. This year, we had numerous impressive nominees making the decision so challenging that we decided to award life membership to three members.

The first new life member is Catharine Sowerby is well-known to many of you. She has been an outstanding volunteer for many years. She was Participation representative on the committee for three years, introducing the Monday night track sessions (alongside the two Lauras) and organized new members’ evenings to make the club more welcoming. Catharine returned to the committee in 2021 and currently serves as the Membership Lead. She facilitated the move from the Seymour Centre to St Mary’s School, manages the Wednesday runs, supports new members in getting involved, and spearheaded the 10K (now Improvers) course and leads on some of our strategic initiatives.

Our second life member award goes to Sammy Li. If you’ve attended Wednesday runs, you’ve undoubtedly met Sammy. For over 10 years, he has been a cornerstone of the Wednesday runs team, ensuring everyone’s belongings are safe while they are out running and facilitating the group’s social evenings. Sammy is also a dedicated field official, whose efforts enable Serpentine athletes to participate in athletics meetings. His contributions behind the scenes are invaluable to our club’s success.

Lastly, Phil Whitehouse receives this year’s third life member award. As the club’s webmaster for the past six years, Phil has devoted countless hours to maintaining and improving the club’s IT infrastructure, ensuring it operates smoothly with minimal interruptions. He has trained numerous members and developed user-friendly manuals to support the effective use of the club’s systems. Beyond his webmaster role, Phil is the captain of the men’s relay team, leading Serpentine’s representation in this year’s winter running competitions and leads our team in the Assembly League.

London Marathon Places

We had the pleasure of announcing the worthy recipients of our 2 club places in the TCS London Marathon. Members who can earn a places are volunteers who through their volunteering during the year have earned 22 points or more. We set out the policy as to allocation of the places and this year we had to draw names from a hat as 3 members had earned the 22 or more points to enter the draw.

Congratulations to Chris Notton and Abu Asad who will be our club representatives in October. Chris is a name familiar to many as he is captain of our Sunday League cross-country team, is one of our representatives on the Summer League, does some of the results uploading and has volunteered at some of our races. He also participates in Sunday League, Met League, Sunday league and a wealth of other club events. Abu gained his points through his regular volunteering at the LFOTM, driving the minibus at the Green Belt relay and participating in many of our handicap, summer league and cross-country events.

Commiserations to those who have missed it this time and thank you for all your contribution to the club as volunteers and as participants. Please look out for information in the New Year regarding how to apply for the 2026 club places.