Volunteer of the Year Award 2015

Tony Jones-Pert, our Policy Development & Improvement Officer, won England Athletics' Volunteer of the Year Award 2015 for the south west region. Tony was nominated by his colleagues at Special Olympics Bournemouth & District where he has devoted many of his volunteer hours for 18 years. Tony is also a coach at Bournemouth Athletics Club where the Special Olympics group are associate members and a pivotal point of the disability work in the club.

Tony has led the growth of the group and seen the number of athletes with intellectual (learning) disabilities increase from 6 to 30. Special Olympics Bournemouth is well respected in the national organisation and Tony organises one of the best run competitions in the Special Olympics calendar, which is held at Kings Park, the home of BAC. The event every year is well supported by young athletes from BAC and many of their officials, one of whom is Wynne Munden.

Wynne accompanied Tony to the awards in Exeter as she was also a winner. After 25 years at the club her achievements were recognised by winning the 'Services to Athletics' Award.

Congratulations are also in order for our colleagues at Active Devon, who were awarded 'Participation Project of the Year' for the immense work they have done around increasing membership of Run England. Not only did they win this regionally but it was also chosen as the winner of the National Award