The Isle of Wight Area Association were surprised, delighted and very proud to be awarded the Russell Scott trophy as best AA for 2010 at the CSSC Annual Conference in Bristol. It was fantastic to be presented with such a prestigious award, not to say a magnificent trophy.
The news was announced to our members in a special edition of our regular newsletter and was warmly received - after all, it is their award; for the volunteers who organise events and activities, for our hard-working committee and for the members who support and take part in the activities on offer. Our Facebook page was quickly updated and now proudly displays the trophy as our profile picture.
Our first opportunity for celebration was at the annual joint CSSC & HASSRA Summer BBQ event in July. There was a lot to celebrate as, in addition to our CSSC win, Hassra (Isle of Wight) had also won a national award as best club - the Sir Philip Rogers Trophy. Both trophies were proudly on display at the party and we had a large celebration cake made to mark the occasion.
It is rare, if not unique for an area to win national awards from both CSSC and Hassra in the same year. Approximately half of our members are also members of Hassra, including four of our committee members and this enables closer working and co-operation between the two organisations. This has proved beneficial to both clubs giving a bigger and better offering of events, activities and savings, benefiting members in every respect.
Winning this award in the same year as CSSC decided to extend membership to the public sector and friends/family has given us an extra boost when recruiting new members. We have taken stands at two of the major summer shows on the Island (Chale Show and The Garlic Festival)to promote CSSC. We had an excellent response from our members who volunteered to man these stands - volunteers happy to give their time for specific events to promote our fabulous organisation. At these shows we had copies of our submission, showing what we have done in the previous year, with the Russell Scott Trophy as tangible evidence that CSSC values its Area Associations and the work of our volunteers. This has given us greater credibility and confidence when encouraging people to join our organisation.
We plan to do several awareness & recruitment visits to eligible employers and the Russell Scott Trophy will be a talking point when explaining what CSSC can offer to its members. We also plan to hold a party in November, partly to welcome new members, partly as a social event for existing members and partly for awareness and recruitment - no doubt the trophy will be there in pride of place!
Winning this award has been a great boost to the people involved in developing the Isle of Wight AA over the past few years, an accolade that means a lot to us and one that we will be defending in 2011….!!
Ann Davison
Chair, IoW AA
