RYA Northern Ireland has announced the return of its annual awards, including a brand new category, which will recognise the region’s unsung heroes of sailing and boating.
The awards, which had been on hold since 2019 due to COVID, are are back with a bang this year and promise to be bigger and better than ever.
Voting is now open with a simplified application process and two new categories: Race Official of The Year and Chair’s Award. See the RYANI website for more details.
Nominations will close at midnight on Friday 17 February, with the awards event will then taking place in April 2023. Nominations should focus on impact that was made between January and December 2022.
RYANI’s chief operating officer Greg Yarnall says: “We are excited to restart the RYA Northern Ireland awards again this year and get 2023 off to a celebratory start.
“We are also taking the opportunity to introduce a new category, Race Official of the Year. Many of our participants enjoy competing throughout the year and without our race officials, these events just wouldn’t be able to happen. We wanted to ensure they too were recognised, alongside our volunteers, instructors and coaches.”
Susan McKnight, chair of RYANI, added: “I am delighted that this year we will have a Chair’s Award. I would ask our sailing and boating community that if they know of a club, centre, person or group who deserve recognition — but do not fall within the other categories — to get in touch and let us know.
“The award will be decided upon by myself and we want to ensure that we recognise someone very special who has achieved something exceptional or gone above and beyond.”
Liz Baker, chair of the RYANI development committee said: “Volunteers are the bedrock of our sport — without them, we simply would not be able to do any of our events and many of our clubs would not exist. There are people right across Northern Ireland who give up their time each and every week to ensure that sailing and boating continues to thrive.
“It is fantastic to be able to celebrate these unsung heroes and I am delighted that this year we will have the Annual Awards and recognise those who do so much for our sport.”
The full list of categories is as follows:
- Chair’s Award nomination
- Race Official of the Year
- Volunteer of the Year
- Instructor of the Year
- Club Race Coach of the year
- Young Powerboater of the Year
- Young Volunteer of the Year
- Young Sailor of the year (this will be decided in house by the performance committee)
The Club of the Year will be awarded but will be run separately from the Annual Awards so that they can be aligned with the RYA Club of the Year process.
