Sports Volunteer Awards

Deadline for nominations: 29th May, 2012, 5pm.

Belfast Media Group will once again honour a range of sporting individuals at the third annual Belfast Sports Volunteer Awards in Belfast City Hall on Tuesday 26th June, 2012 at 6.30pm. The awards scheme is a mark of recognition for those individuals who give up their time voluntarily in support of their club, school, team or family member. Sport depends on volunteers for success, from coaches to managers to those who open the club on Saturday morning or who clean the kits. These awards will recognise those who help support their sport and insure young people enjoy their games and fulfil their ambition.

From our readers’ nominations we will select forty volunteers and from this cream of the crop, six people will be recognised in these various categories:

1. Young Volunteer Award (sponsored by Asda)
This award will go to a young person, aged under 30, who shows outstanding dedication to their sport or club

2. Cross Community Sport Volunteer Award (sponsored by SERE Chevrolet)
We will recognise the person who has shown exceptional commitment to promoting sport on a cross-community basis

3. Volunteer Award in a Disability Sport 
The winner of this award will be the person who has given endless effort in the promotion and development of disability sports

4. Volunteer Award in a Specialist Sport
Thousands of athletes compete at a wide range of diverse and sometimes very specialised sports disciplines such as athletics, martial arts, kick boxing, and scores of other specialist sports.

5. LifeTime Achievement Award (sponsored by Hughes Insurance)
For the individual who has given a lifetime of voluntary support to their sport or club

6. Volunteer of the Year Award
This award will recognise the individual who has achieved a spectacular result or reached new levels in the past 12 months.

Sports Volunteer Awards 2012

Columnists May 18, 2012

Lock us up and swallow the key!

I was in Donegal at the weekend and I asked a man how he planned to vote in the south’s up-coming referendum. “Well,” he told me, “ if Sinn Féin say no about something, I say yes”.

Liam Murphy May 14, 2012

Big man of GAA celebrates in style

Veni, Vidi, Vinci . I came, I saw, I conquered, was the powerful message sent back to Rome by Julius Caesar when he won a war in Zela (currently known as Zile in Turkey. After spending two days with the Gaels of Glengormley, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh might well have sent a similar message back to headquarters. Throughout the two days he won the hearts of all who met him as he demonstrated his love and passion for the Irish language and Gaelic games.

Columnists May 13, 2012

That’s not the way to do it as summer nears

THERE’S nothing funnier for children to watch than a long-suffering wife getting battered with a cudgel by a short-tempered violent husband – or so you’d think if you watched a seaside Punch and Judy show.

Colin Millar May 12, 2012

Blues make it a double

Linfield replicated their end of season celebrations from 12 months ago as they lifted their second trophy in the space of a week, defeating Crusaders 4-1 in Saturday’s Irish Cup final.

Andersonstown News May 11, 2012

My marathon highs and lows

HIGHLIGHTS 1. Sheltering in City Hall with marathon veteran from New York Fr Brian Jordan — chaplain to the trade unions of the Big Apple — before the 9am start while thousands were getting drenched outside waiting for the Lord Mayor Niall Óg to sound the starting horn (gun for off apparently decommissioned).

Columnists May 11, 2012

Who calls the shots in Europe?

I enjoy elections. I enjoy them so much, I was delighted when the Fianna Fáil wheeze of introducing electronic voting machines backfired, leaving them (and the taxpayer, of course) with machinery that couldn’t be used and cost a packet to store.