Sinfin RC Awards Night 2023

After an excellent 2022 for Sinfin RC, the time arrived for the club to hold its annual awards event, once again taking place at the Old Bell Hotel in Saddlergate, Derby, with a record attendance of club members enjoying what turned out to be an excellent evening. Photos of the event can be found here.

With the number of club members swelling rapidly over the last 9 months since renewal time in April, it was no real surprise that it was reflected in the number of attendees with everyone looking forward to a drink and celebrating the previous year’s successes!

Chairman James Spray hosted the evening, with everyone sitting at tables named after famous Marathons for a lovely three course meal.  After the rather filling menu, James welcomed all and took everyone through the previous year’s successes in his extremely well prepared Powerpoint presentation, including highly impressive curtain style transitions between slides!

James gave way momentarily to allow new member Dan Winter, who is autistic, to deliver a well-received speech on his first couple of years at the club and how the club helped him overcome his struggles. He said how the club has been entirely inclusive & supportive making him feel highly welcomed, and that it is now part of his [extended!] family!  It was met with a rapturous round of applause and brought a few tears to many eyes!

Eventually… we reached the actual awards presentations, first up were the parkrun championships, and following a whole host of parkrun statistics, Brian Warner and Simon Bray received prizes for volunteering on a large number of occasions, with Raymond Evans not present to receive first prize.  For the ladies parkrun championship, Catherine Williams, Maria Gamero and Nicky Pochibko received trophies for their podium places and Brendan Devlin & David Lees received 3rd and 2nd place trophies respectively for the men.  Winner Sam Broughton sadly was not present to receive the 1st place award.

Next up were the Cross Country championships, with Sarah Sutton taking the 2nd place trophy and Caroline Scott winning the marvellous first place shield. Laura Jacklin in 3rd place unfortunately was not able to make the presentation. Following on from the ladies, Jason Ball collected 2nd place and winner Brendan Devlin took the shield for the men. Stephen Cresswell unfortunately was not present to collect his 3rd place trophy.

Onto the Road Championships and Nicky Pochibko, Julie Heithus, and winner Alyson Woodcock stepped up to collect their trophies for the ladies, and for the men local running legend Richard Sims took the 3rd place trophy, and David Lees won the shield. Sam Broughton who finished 2nd was sadly not present to collect his trophy.

Trevor Hibbert then took over on the microphone, introducing the fell championships and the brand new spectacular 5kg wooden trophy, topped with a piece of Derbyshire limestone, named the Graham Young trophy after the man who originally introduced a fell championship to Sinfin RC back in 2008.  Graham was present himself and delivered a fabulous speech on the championship’s history, before presenting it to the winner, Caroline Scott.  Caroline delivered a rather compelling speech herself on how amazing it is for club members to represent Sinfin RC and put the club firmly on the map for both cross country and fell races.  Gill Watson and Julie Heithus came up to receive 3rd and 2nd place awards respectively and Trevor Hibbert and Brendan Devlin received a joint 2nd place award.

Catherine Williams made a return to the stage to collect the “Best Female Performance of the Year”, being the first Sinfin runner back in the cross country race at Burton.  Simon Bray then also received the “Best Male Performance of the Year” award for ascending and descending Mount Snowdon six times in the space of 24 hours!  Astonishing! 

Sheila Groves received the “Best Newcomer” award and Maria Gamero was also awarded the trophy for “Most Improved Runner of the Year”. Julie Heithus collected the “Club Person of the Year” award and gave a lovely little speech afterwards to thank everyone for her proud achievement.

James Spray concluded the presentation finally with an award for the most “Outstanding contribution” delivering a lovely speech to the winner and former chairman, Chris Morrison, who himself then reciprocated with a fine and emotional speech himself.

Following the presentation, the DJ cranked up the sounds, and club members took to the dancefloor to boogie on down to some classic bangers from the 90s to round off a fantastic evening all round, marking a rather special year for Sinfin RC!  Here's to 2023's successes!

Photos of the event can be found here.