At Ringwood, the committee decided to mount the heritage badge onto a perpetual shield and award it, on an annual basis, to the member who put in the most amount of “effort beyond the norm”. That was an easy decision to make.
The difficulty for the committee, however, was in choosing one winner over several others who were equally deserving of this honour but for different reasons and over different periods of time.
No doubt like other clubs, a number of members at Ringwood put inordinate amounts of effort into many aspects of club life either in time-consuming management roles (mostly behind-the-scenes 24-7) through to the highly visible projects in the shorter term. There are some members who have contributed consistently in a large range of smaller and not so small tasks over many years (often unasked); and others relatively new to the club who are now contributing to the betterment of the club and/or its facilities in other ways.
As a consequence, a secret ballot was devised. By giving all members a say, it also gave them ownership and allowed them to vote in accordance with their perceptions.
The inaugural winner was Neil Holland … many congratulations to him. For the past few years, he has been the Club’s Courts Coordinator and, amongst other things, has recently overseen the major refurbishment of our lawn and the attempts to eradicate Nostoc (Star Jelly) from our courts. Unfortunately the Nostoc has returned and so the battle against it continues: but this is another story.
The presentation of the trophy was made to a very surprised Neil at the 2025 Annual General Meeting held at the end of May. Congratulations once again to him.
Barbara Blackmur
Immediate Past President
