Sinfin RC Awards Night 2026

Photos of the evening here

Saturday 17th January 2026

Report by Brian Warner

In January each year we have our celebration and awards ceremony for our members. This is a family event for everyone to witness and remember their running achievements throughout the year.

This year our venue was at the Monarch Suite at the Derbyshire Country Cricket Ground. Take up for the evening had been exceptional - there were 100 spaces and we filled them all.

Preparations  for the evening are made via a sub-group set up earlier in the year so that we have everything in place to make it an evening to remember.  Set up of the event room started at 2pm on the day. Thanks to Megan, Sue, Steve, Dan, Mark, Sheila, Steve and Brian (and anyone else who I’ve forgotten) for their help preparing and decorating the room.

The evening started at 6.30pm, although there were some eager members in around 10 minutes before. At 7.30pm we began to get seated in preparation for the food at 7.45pm. I got up to get food five minutes later and was surprised how very far back in the queue I was - obviously, a lot of hungry runners......

The awards ceremony kicked off at 8.45pm with a welcome speech from outgoing Chair Duncan Cowie. He then went on to introduce David Denton (and his wife Eva) as special guests for the night. David, for many years, spent his time organising local races that a lot of our members attended regularly or had become involved with. He had final decided this year to retire from organising these races and we wanted to show our appreciation for his service to the running community.

Duncan then introduced the review of the year movie which went through each month with pictures of our members achievements (approx 15 minutes).

Sue and Caroline then took over as the evening hostesses to introduce the awards section. Before each award there was an introduction from a club member giving an overview of the details of the award including positions 4th down to 10th place or those in contention for the award plus any applicable statistics.

Award Details

Cross County  

This championship points are made up of the North Midlands and Derby Runner XC league races and the Derbyshire XC Champs race and National XC Champs races.

12 races in total but only 8 results count towards the final total

Cross Country Winners

Male:

1^st - Duncan Cowie

2^nd - Brendan Devlin

3^rd - Christopher Morrison

Cross Country

Female:

1st - Caroline Scott

2^nd - Jane Wade

3^rd - Georgina Illsley

Mick George Club Person of The Year Trophy

This award is voted by the members and goes to the person that members consider has gone over and above for SRC e.g. someone who provides support / help for others

Winner - Martin Sower

The Ian Harlow Best Newcomer Trophy

This trophy is voted for by the committee members and goes to the person that is considered to have come to the club in the last 18 moths and has had the biggest impact / got involved etc.

Winner - Lauren Knight

Fell Championships

The fell league is a set of races announced at the start of each year and we do acknowledge the first, second and third male and female places.

The overall table winner received the Graham Young Trophy and the overall 2nd place person receives the Fell Shield.

The table this year gave the following results:

Winners

Female:

1^st Place & Graham Young Trophy Winner - Catherine Williams

2^nd Place - Georgina Illsley

3^rd Place - Caroline Scott

Male:

1^st Place & Fell Shield Winner - Duncan Cowie

2^nd Place - Simon Bray

3^rd Place - Brendan Devlin

Best Male and Female Performances

These awards are voted for by the committee - we look over the Green Book details and get a shortlist of what we consider are our members best performances throughout the year - this is no mean task and usually takes a couple of votes to get to a final decision

Winners

Best Male Performance 

Dan Winter

Best Female Performance

Catherine Williams

The Chris Morrison Grand Prix Trophy

Our members are awarded age graded points for their best 8 performances from the following:10 races

1 x Marathon

2 x Half Marathons

1 x 10 Miler

4 x 10K

1 x 5 Miler

1 x Wildcard – any other distance

This is the most open of our championships and members results come from any of the non Fell and non Cross Country races that they run throughout the year

Winners

Male:

1st Place - Jerry Evans

2nd Place - David Lees

3rd Place - Dennis Ceranic

Female:

1^st Place - Dannielle Stack

2^nd Place - Becky Bas

3^rd Place - Dawn O'Hara

parkrun Challenge

As a club we collate all members results from the years parkruns into a table based on age grading with additional points for finishing positions / course PB's / age category results and locality.

Points count from each runners best 25 parkruns.

For this award, points are collated for 'ALL' SRC members.

Winners

Male:

1^st - Dan Winter

2^nd - Richard Brooksby

3^rd - Joseph Babicki

Female:

1^st - Karolina Kucharek

2^nd - Fiona Finnegan

3^rd - Jenny Edwards

parkrun Volunteer Challenge

As parkrun is not only about running we also collate details of all members volunteering over the 12 months and collate these into a table with different points associated to the roles and complexity of those roles undertaken

Winners

1st - Susan Winter

2nd - Lucy Tuckwood

3rd - Michael Tuckwood

Once the awards had finished the fun and partying could begin.

Members were invited to participate in a Bingo - with appropriate running related number calling, and a 'very' competitive musical chairs game (resulted in one broken chair).

Then it was a bit of drinking and dancing until last orders at 12.15am.

A great evening but a few final thanks to a number of the organisers.

• Sue and Jane for the over preparations and planning.

• Steve for organising and setting up the presentation slides

• Lauren K for the year in review video

I could go on and on but a big thank you to all. It was another brilliant event and well and truly a great review of the past year and how we are developing as a growing club.