Category: Sports Volunteer

Mark Ralph made it into the finals of the dedication and effort he puts into running the Barrow Ameteur Swimming Club.

Mark Ralph got involved with the BASC when his daughter joined several years ago. As well as running his own successful business and has worked tirelessly over the last 4 years to sustain and develop the club.

Young people of the Barrow Borough and Furness Area aged from 6 to 20+ attend the club which is over 150 years old!

The club provides a structured ASA and Swim 21 Kite marked approved swimming development programme and is an opportunity for all the schools to help support the development of Duke of Edinburgh Award Students.

Mark helps to raise funds for vital training equipment, maintained all club electronic timing equipment, introduced computer based finance management systems, developed a wide range of swimmer performance exports, established and maintains the club website, produces the clubs event team sheets, organises 8 x club championships, gives up his time judging at local events, supports other local clubs and develops other ,local club judges, organises session coach Roma’s, organises club transportation for meets, organises the annual club awards night and the engraving of many trophies, has introduced certificates and medals for the young developing swimmers in recognition for their efforts.
On top of all that he created and manages the clubs website.

Parents of the children of the club say “He is approachable, very resourceful, igneous, will always do whatever he can to help others.”

TO VOTE FOR MARK IN THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD  

TEXT  LBA17 to 82055

With thanks to Blake Henderson Ltd for sponsoring this award

Each text vote costs your normal network text message charge.

One free vote may be made online by visiting www.lovebarrowawards.co.uk/peopleschoice

Voting closes at 6.00pm on the Sunday 19th February 2017. Any votes received after then may be charged but will not be counted.

The winner will be announced at The Love Barrow Awards on Friday 10th March 2017 and will be announced via Facebook and Twitter also.

Bob Davies is in the final three for the 30+ years he has dedicated to local football and refereeing.

Bob Davies has covered just about every role in local football over the past 30 years – coach, groundsman, club chairman, referee ,local referees officer and a member of the Furness Premier league and Furness FA committees.

He is currently the chairman at Crooklands Casuals FC where he spends most of the week looking after pitches, painting, sweeping out changing rooms, arranging maintenance and ensuring that the club is a safe place for all involved, basically everything that needs doing, Bob does.

He spends most of Saturday at the club looking after the junior and senior section (11 teams in total), ensuring that everyone is parked safely, marking out the pitch, looking after the bar area and even taking over the coaching role if others are unavailable.

In addition to this Bob, continues to be a well respected local referee, known to many for his calm and effective control of matches. He referees on the local leagues as well as taking up duties on a Sunday in the North West Youth Alliance, with trips to Lancaster and beyond. This is only the start of his refereeing work though, as he is also runs the local referees society, where others can come for training, support and advice and he regularly arranges speakers from outside the area to come and deliver training nights for local referees. In addition to this, Bob is the local referee appointments officer and in this role he acts as a key link between referees and clubs.

For some, the above would be more than enough, but not for Bob. He is also a key member of both the Furness FA committee, where he organises the local junior and senior cups, collecting teams sheets and sending out fixtures and the Furness Premier League committee, ensuring that adult football continues to operate with the maximum number of teams.

Members of the club say “He is fondly known within the club as ‘Sir Bob’ and his unselfish attitude, commitment to helping others and friendly welcome make sure that both children and adults feel looked after and safe.”

TO VOTE FOR BOB IN THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD  

TEXT  LBA16 to 82055

With thanks to Blake Henderson Ltd for sponsoring this award

Each text vote costs your normal network text message charge.

One free vote may be made online by visiting www.lovebarrowawards.co.uk/peopleschoice

Voting closes at 6.00pm on the Sunday 19th February 2017. Any votes received after then may be charged but will not be counted.

The winner will be announced at The Love Barrow Awards on Friday 10th March 2017 and will be announced via Facebook and Twitter also.

Jeff Moses is in the final three for the dedication, time and effort he puts into running Barrow Amateur Boxing Club.

Jeff Moses runs Barrow Amateur Boxing Club.  Jeff attended the club as a young boy.  After being bullied at school, Jeff joined the boxing club and found it to be of great help with his problems.  He stuck with the club throughout the years and continued to help run it, training scores of young men and women in the sport of boxing.

The boxing has helped many young people over the years.  Jeff has seen many young people come to the club and he has not only taught them how to be a good boxer but helped them become better people in thier community, helping many young men and women stay out of trouble and move on to a better life both in and out of school.

The club runs childrens session every Friday night for an hour for £1 per person.
Jeff is constantly running charity nights, getting the kids to do fundraising fun runs with him, he and some of the young people did total warrior this year. The list goes on!

Jeff, upon being approached by a mum with an Autistic son, took it upon himself to go on a Disability Training Course to help him understand some of the children better. Upon returning the club has now set up a six week boxing course called boxing buddies, which is on a Thursday night, £1 a session, and is purely for disabled Young People. The children were all given brand new gloves, got to meet Liam Conroy , a ex-member of the boxing club and also the world champion boxer from Barrow.

Parents of some of the children say “It’s almost as if it highlighted the challenges that disabled kids face, and he’s totally committed himself to making a safe and inclusive environment for them, whilst introducing them to sport. My boy has made friends and his confidence has soared. All because of Barrow ABC and the spectacular team there.”

TO VOTE FOR JEFF IN THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD  

TEXT  LBA18 to 82055

With thanks to Blake Henderson Ltd for sponsoring this award

Each text vote costs your normal network text message charge.

One free vote may be made online by visiting www.lovebarrowawards.co.uk/peopleschoice

Voting closes at 6.00pm on the Sunday 19th February 2017. Any votes received after then may be charged but will not be counted.

The winner will be announced at The Love Barrow Awards on Friday 10th March 2017 and will be announced via Facebook and Twitter also.