South East Annual Awards Report
HASSRA South East Annual Awards 2024, presented at St Martin-in-the-field, London on Wednesday 12th March 2025.
Congratulations to all our winners this year, below are the highlights but you can read their full submissions HERE.
Our awards start with recognising the efforts of members through Merit Awards. These are much coveted and are issued sparingly recognising HASSRA endeavours over several years. Although there is no written guidance around receiving more than one merit award, it is considered that a reasonable lapse of time will have taken place.
MERIT AWARD WINNERS 2024
Tristan Court - Merit Award
Tris has been and continues to be a driving force for Brighton club.
Tris is extremely approachable and members of the committee and members in general often go to him to mull over ideas or ask for his opinion which is very valued. Tris uses a lot of his own time for anything HASSRA and it really is appreciated to have someone like him on the committee. The club would be lost without him.
Shona Honeysett - Merit Award
A stalwart supporter of HASSRA and the face of her club for many, many years, this awards the dedication over all of these years. The full nomination lists considerable achievements and milestones and this will be shown in full in the awards booklet. Thank you, Shona, from your friends at Eastbourne HASSRA.
Jackie Akehurst - Merit Award
Jackie has been a HASSRA committee member for a number of years. She is proactive and much valued by her fellow committee members. Jackie is supportive and not afraid to query decisions and offer effective solutions.
Jayne Dawson - Merit Award
Jayne’s local club say that she is simply brilliant and is HASSRA! She organises so much for the office and nothing is too much trouble. Always around and asking for new ideas to promote and celebrate HASSRA. Some colleagues don’t know her real name! She is just known as Mrs H!
Janet Stemp - Merit Award
Janet has been the Treasurer of the Didcot Club for over 30 years – she is and has always been the face of the club. When others have come and gone – Jan has remained at the heart of the club and continued to keep things going. Jan has been instrumental in the success of the club – applying for grants and organising events during the pandemic.
Anita Taylor – Margate
Anita is not only the treasurer within her local club but one of the driving forces that has helped propel her club to providing great things for their members. Introducing the snowball has joined up the various teams within the office and has ensured creation of greater funds to offer more member treats and activities.
Ade Akinboweya- Merit Award
Ade achieved a new high in terms of HASSRA activity in winning the Table Tennis Men’s Singles at the September Festival in 2024. An active participant for a number of years but now able to proudly announce that he is a national champion.
LOCAL OFFICE CLUB AWARDS 2024
This year the Awards Committee decided that as it is the 90th anniversary, that all clubs that submitted a report would receive a £50 payment for their club. We had an increased number of reports received although less than half of the clubs in the Region submitted one.
Another difficult year for the Awards Committee, with some very tight calls on what has been an improved completion of the template provided.
To start with, we would like to recognise a club that is deemed to be our most improved in 2024
Most Improved (winning £150 for club funds) – Canterbury.
Highly Commended £150 – Newport - IOW.
Best Small Club Runner Up £200 – Eastbourne.
Best Large Club Runner Up and £200 – Worthing.
Best Small Club and £300 – Margate.
Best Large Club and £300 – Ramsgate.
ARTS & CRAFT NON-SPORTING CONTRIBUTOR 2024
This year’s winner has gained critical acclaim both within and outside of HASSRA. Within HASSRA he is widely regarded as a brilliant photographer and a real devotee to his hobby, winning many competitions at various levels and officiating at many events. He is known to leave home at all hours of the day and night in pursuit of atmospheric, original and unusual subjects.
He is a dedicated expert in his chosen craft and is a truly worthy winner; Liam Willis from Hastings HUB club.
SPORTSPERSON OF THE YEAR 2024
Our winners this year recognises not one but four individuals, who together form the Milton Keynes Quiz Team. The team has been ever-present at the South East regional events and national qualifiers for over 20 years, very rarely beaten at this level. Despite their longevity they had never been crowned national champions coming close on numerous occasions, but this finally changed in 2024 as they were crowned General Knowledge Champions at the July Festival. Our winners are Rob Zorlakki, Damon Flynn, Derek Hall and Michael Leonard.
BUSINESS SPONSOR OF THE YEAR 2024
Our winner this year has been their local club sponsor for a number of years, however the last few has seen considerable change in both staff in the office and those serving on the HASSRA committee. Her unwavering support of all things HASSRA includes encouraging management engagement to allow HASSRA events to take place, improving staff wellbeing.
This award deservedly goes to Therese Young from Margate.
NEWCOMER AWARD 2024
A recently introduced award to recognise the valued contribution of new blood into the HASSRA family.
We had a number of nominations this year , so have decided to award a Highly Commended certificates to Gareth George from Eastbourne and Nick Gurr from Margate.
Our winner joined the DWP in November 2023 and was the first to sign up to HASSRA during their induction week HASSRA talk leading the way for her fellow trainees to join. Joining the committee as soon as they could at the next AGM in February 2024 and has been a great help to the team.
They bring enthusiasm and fresh ideas to every meeting and is always willing to take things on and contact businesses on behalf of the committee, for example contacted the local bowling alley and helped to organise our club tenpin bowling event. They joined in with selling snowball and raffle tickets as well as leading competitions back of house for the club.
They are a great ambassador for HASSRA in the office and deserves to be recognised.
Our winner is Abbey Birks from Ramsgate.
Abbey automatically gets an invitation to the HASSRA National Conference at Warwick University in May as our Regional winner and will be in contention to be a potential national Newcomer of the Year.
EXCEPTIONAL MERIT AWARD
This award was introduced a few years ago to recognise HASSRA volunteers in the South East region who had made an outstanding contribution to their club or region over a considerable period. That is certainly the case with today’s recipients.
There are usually key individuals in every successful club and that is certainly the case here. Many members in this local club say that it would not survive without them and over the years we have watched the Southampton club thrive and get back to its former glory. The effort they put in for the enjoyment of others is quite exceptional, be it arranging club activities, trips, theatre outings or supporting local charities which in 2024 reached the phenomenal total of £5620 for the Mount Batten Hampshire hospice.
It is a rare thing to honour two people as a pair but this is very much a case of- BOGOF - buy one get one free, so this thoroughly deserved exceptional merit award goes to:
Donna Hack and Pauline Stukings from Southampton.
NGAIRE THOMAS VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR & PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR WINNER 2024.
It is extremely rare for anyone to be nominated for 2 awards in the same year but on this occasion that is the case and deservedly so.
Our volunteer of the year was also successfully named as personality of the year. The following describes his outstanding candidature for both awards………….
He is amazing, he is the beating heart of HASSRA Ramsgate and we would not be as successful and popular with members as we are without Neil.
HASSRA Ramsgate has had a change about over the last few years with committee members moving on and retiring. At one point we had only Neil and the late, great Tony Warley who we sadly lost, from the original committee. Neil could have chosen this time to leave too but he is so passionate about HASSRA and keeping it going, offering our members the best possible experience that there was never any question that he was staying.
Neil is a great club treasurer, always taking the time to make sure our accounts are up to date and has overseen the introduction of our use of the Sum Up card machine. This innovation has seen an increase in the money we are able to raise for our club and charities. Neil attends all committee meetings bringing ideas and ensures we run at least two events every month for our members. He brings his experience from how it was run previously and events of the past, alongside his enthusiasm for finding and running new events like our bowling and mini golf events in 2024.
Neil attends taster days and recently attended the go-karting one, promoting it widely to our members and to people who might want to join. Neil runs the weekly snowball efficiently and without any fuss despite it meaning he is unable to enter himself. He also creates and adds many of our quizzes and competitions, again meaning he is unable to participate. Neil regularly attends the regional AGM and is attending again this year.
Always working away, sometimes quietly, often in the background but always as a HASSRA superstar.
Our deserved winner of both these awards is Neil Taylor from Ramsgate.
