Many of you will know that I usually only win anything when there's no-one else in my age group. Not this time! I turned up at the Great Hall in Birmingham University on Saturday morning knowing I had been shortlisted as an Award Finalist for Volunteer of the Year, but not really knowing what that meant. It transpired that there was a bronze, silver and gold award for many of the award categories and I ended up walking away with the GOLD award!!

So a big thank you for putting my name forward and a special thank you to Tess for writing and submitting the nomination itself. The event was very well organised and the awards were presented throughout a long and enjoyable lunch. We sat on tables of 10 and there were at least 20 tables. The awards were presented by Paralympic Champion Ellie Robinson and Olympic bronze medallist Daniel Goodfellow. Here are some pics of the event: http://www.swimming.org/asa/news/general-news/d/27863

While I'm delighted at winning the award (and will milk it for as long as others will allow me to), I should mention all the other people within OTS who give their time, knowledge and expertise in all sorts of different ways to make us the great club we are. It simply wouldn't work without that essential volunteer input. Oh dear, this is starting to sound like an over-emotional acceptance speech, so I shall just say THANK YOU!

Rob