Supporters attending the last regular home league game of the season against Grays Athletic may have noticed at the end of the game that some important awards were handed out by the Club. Alongside the Supporters Player of the Year award presented to Ashley Carew was the Club Person of the Year Award and a new award, Volunteer of the Year.

We’re very pleased to announce that Trust Board member, Mel Hughes, was given the award for Club Person of the Year and Trust member and regular volunteer at the Club, Sarah Binns was given the Volunteer of the Year award.

Mel joined the Supporters’ Trust Board in 2015 and has been instrumental in managing the merchandise side of things. It is testament to Mel’s hard work that we offer such a varied and good quality range of merchandise for a non-league club at our level not just on match days but online too – congratulations Mel!

The Trust welcomes the addition of the Volunteer of the Year award and it represents an increased participation by the Club’s supporters to help on match days – something which will become increasingly important as we strive for fan ownership of the Club.

Sarah has been following non league football for many years and is well known to those at Wingate & Finchley where she was a regular visitor. We’re very pleased that Sarah ventured south to Champion Hill and are grateful to her for giving up time on a match day to assist with various duties – a thoroughly deserved award!

This season, the Trust made a conscious effort to try and recruit more supporters to volunteer on match days and the success of this is largely down to Board member, Pete Wright, who has worked hard to co-ordinate people with the Football Committee on match days. It is Pete’s first season on the Trust Board so well done to Pete on a great first year!

We would like to thank all supporters who have given up their time for the Club this season to help out in the mega container, 50/50 sales, programmes sales, Support our Stadium flyering, fixture posters and IWD raffle. In no particular order they are:

Tom Adams, Matt Wright, Pete Campbell, Nick Pittaway, Iain Gordon, Alexander Myers, Stephen Hunnisett, Paul Osman, Chris Gilbart, Matt Arnold, Will Clunas, Michael Bessel and lastly Clare Keeble who has given up a lot of her time to help ensure that supporters got their presents from the shop delivered in time for Christmas and at many other times during the season. If we’ve accidentally omitted anyone who has helped please let us know and we will amend!

We would also like to thank James Masini, Mark Panton and Simon Barnett who have given their time to us on planning, fan ownership matters and the website. James and Mark both stood down from their roles on the Trust last year but have continued to play an important role in these areas for which we are very grateful. Simon has helped us out with our website for a number of years and we’re extremely grateful for his continued support.