Our chairman
Paul Stewart
Inviting a Guest of Honour for our annual ‘Bun Fight’ is a task that is taken with care and a lot of thought. We have been fortunate that our alumni of guests have accepted the responsibility of not only presenting the prizes but to remind our young members (and their parents) that having a dream and reaching for it is perfectly normal and should be encouraged.
When Lewis Hamilton came to do the honours last year, it was his first public appearance as a Formula 1 driver so, although there was excitement on the evening itself, many of our members could be forgiven for not yet knowing who Lewis was and what he and his father, Anthony, had achieved. This year was different! Now, thanks to Lewis’ frantic schedule, it was arguably a little audacious of me to ask Lewis to come back to do the honours again, but we felt that his achievements and the manner in which he conducted himself in 2007 struck a chord with our members in a powerful way that had not been seen before. For me, it was worth taking the risk of him saying no. Not only did Lewis accept with grace and perform with style, he had everyone in the hall inspired and he reminded us that with hard work, sacrifice and family support, dreams are achievable.
I take this opportunity to thank Lewis for accepting the position as Honorary Vice-President of our Club and generously offering an annual “Inspiration Award” (so named by Lewis) to recognise a member who has demonstrated this quality most convincingly during the year.
I am proud to report that our two football teams, Springfield Under-14s and Springfield Under-16s, delivered success on the pitch by winning both their Championships and Cup tournaments. It was a great privilege for us to have football legend Les Ferdinand presenting the awards at the celebration dinner. Many thanks to Helen Spinney and Henry Hope-Frost at Haymarket for their help in putting the fifth edition of our magazine together; to Peter Windsor for his contribution and to Matt Bishop for making all five editions possible and who has now moved on to work for the McLaren F1 team as their Group Head of Communications and Public Relations. I wish him great success in his new role.
As always, I am most grateful to the magazine’s advertisers and contributors – without their support the Club would be seriously jeopardised. In closing, I wish our new Honorary Vice-President continued success both on and off the track.
All my best wishes, Paul