Do you know an inspirational volunteer who is worthy of a Pride of Table Tennis award? If so, now is the time to nominate them!

Perhaps you know someone like Anne Borrowdale, who picked up the prestigious ‘Volunteer of the Year’ of the year award in 2018. The award recognises a person over 25 years of age for their dedication, commitment or impact on a club or league over the previous 12 months.

Click here to nominate a Volunteer of the Year or Young Volunteer of the Year

Nominations close at 5pm on Wednesday 18th December, 2019

Since 2014, Anne has been the voluntary Development Officer for the Oxford & District Table Tennis Association. She set up Cowley Table Tennis (now taken over by Oxford Community Table Tennis Club) to encourage people to enjoy playing social table tennis. The club’s Thursday morning over-55s session has proved especially popular.

Anne works a lot with other organisations and individuals, both local and national, making connections and promoting the social and health benefits of table tennis. These include Table Tennis England, Age UK Oxfordshire and the council’s Go Active and Ping! Oxford programmes.

With others, she formed Oxford Community Table Tennis Club in January 2019. It’s a new, inclusive Premier table tennis club which will run the social sessions and have competitive league teams as well. Here is a clip of one of the most recent projects Anne has developed and managed, the Oxford Summer League, which enjoyed its second summer of success this summer:

Anne was a deserving winner for her incredible work in the sport by volunteering countless hours organising, coaching and developing numerous table tennis activities in the Oxford community and surrounding areas.

At the presentation ceremony, she said: “It was really surprising. It is just really nice to feel appreciated because you don’t do these things to get an award or anything, but it is great that people recognise.”

The Pride of Table Tennis Awards for 2019 were launched earlier this month. We are asking clubs and leagues all over the country to present their own Club or League Volunteer of the Year and their Young Volunteer of the Year awards to someone who has gone ‘above and beyond’ in the past 12 months.

Everyone who is honoured in this way at local level will receive a certificate from Table Tennis England and will be put forward for the national awards – the winners of both categories will be guests of honour and receive their awards at the Senior National Championships over the weekend of February 28-March 1.

We will also be surprising some of the local winners by choosing them at random to receive special ‘table tennis experiences’ or prizes, such as a weekend away at the Nationals with overnight stay, the chance to train with England coaches or players, or a spa break.

This is the first year of the new-look Pride awards, which will run on a two-year cycle co-inciding with National Conferences. Further information on the changes to the awards can be found by clicking here