Life Membership for Graham Trimming, annual awards for Malcolm Makarian, Georgia Veneer and Rachel Farquhar

One of the traditions at Cippenham Table Tennis Club is the annual presentation of awards to the Club’s players of the year and to its volunteers. Always at this time of year, the awards ceremony is timed to celebrate of the opening of the purpose-built Cippenham Table Tennis Centre in October 1996.

The highlight of the evening is always the presentation of the Karen Mitchell Memorial Trophy for Outstanding Contribution to the Club. Officers are excluded from nomination for this, the objective being to recognize an ordinary member who has contributed from outside of the Management Committee. This year the popular winner was Malcolm Makarian. Malcolm spends at lot of time at Cippenham both during the week and at weekends. During Tuesday and Thursday open practice sessions he is usually on hand to help integrate newcomers who might otherwise feel uneasy of their first visit and also gives one to one coaching to adult beginners. At weekend events he is an ever helpful umpire and general helper and recently became one of the Club’s latest crop of English Table Tennis Association qualified Tournament Organizers.

The awards of players of the year went to opposite ends of the age spectrum. The Junior Player of the Year was Rachel Farquhar who really came to national prominence during season 2006-7. Farquhar won the national under-15 trials but then went better at the National Cadet Championships when she reached the semi-final stage of both the singles and doubles events beating higher ranked players en route.

Georgia Veneer is 85 years young and is not surprisingly the Club’s oldest player. The fact that she is still playing at that age is remarkable but her feat of gaining a bronze medal at the European Veterans’ Championships in the Over-85 Women’s Doubles, barely four months after undergoing extensive knee surgery, made her the obvious choice this year as the Cippenham Club’s Senior Player of the Year.

The evening finished on a high for Club Chairman Graham Trimming. Graham was the founder of the Club thirty-four years ago and has been its General Secretary ever since. His list of other titles is a long one and includes Development Coordinator, Membership Secretary, Press Secretary, Newsletter Editor and Webmaster as well as being the organizer and referee for many of the Club’s weekend events. Graham was the surprised recipient of the first Honorary Life Membership ever bestowed by the Club.

There were two other surprised recipients of awards during the evening packed with sentiment. Sue Hayes and Jan Chapman were both presented with the English Table Tennis Association’s Maurice Goldstein Merit Award. Ten years of devoted service to table tennis are the minimum prerequisites for this award and both ladies have more than qualified. Sue Hayes started life on the South Coast and was a leading light in the Hastings League before moving to Slough in 1997. As a qualified 4-Star (senior) coach Sue has the top qualification available and is an assessor and tutor of coaches as well. She has, ever since moving to the area, been one of the front line coaches at Cippenham and is also the Club’s Deputy Chairman and has held other offices in prior years.

Jan Chapman has been on the Maidenhead Association Management Committee for more than twenty years and Chairman for the last seven. She is also one of the front line coaches at Cippenham on up to four evenings each week and also coaches in local schools.