sportMoray Recognition Awards 2008

Congratulations go to Mary Bell for winning the Club Level Award at the Eight Acres sportMoray awards event. If you wonder what Mary had to do to win it, read below!!!

Mary Bell, Forres Cycling Club.

Mary Bell joined Forres Cycling Club early in 1960 and at the Club Annual General Meeting in October 1966, was elected to serve as the Club’s Social Secretary. This was a position Mary was to occupy for the next sixteen years, responsible for arranging all of the Club’s social events, Prize giving Dinners, Coffee Mornings, fund raising events etc.

At the Annual General Meeting in October 1982, Mary relinquished her position as Social Secretary to take up the post of Club Treasurer; receiving money, paying the Club utility bills, purchasing trophies and carefully husbanding Club financial resources. This is a job she has done, without interruption, for the last twenty six years. At this year’s Annual General Meeting, October 2008, she decided the time was right to hand over the responsibility to someone younger, bringing down the curtain on forty two years of continuous dedicated service as a post holder to Forres Cycling Club.

Mary has been so much more than a loyal and dedicated committee post holder for these long years and intends to continue fully participating in the functioning of the Club for the foreseeable future. Not long after joining the Club, back in 1960, she trained as a race timekeeper and recorder, a very important and responsible position, without which no racing can ever take place. Ever since then she has willingly acted as a Timekeeper or Recorder for cycle races all over the North of Scotland. This service she has provided, not just for Forres Cycling Club, but for all the Cycling Clubs in the north of Scotland area. Times without number have found her standing, with stopwatch and clipboard in hand, timing races, often in appalling weather, for no more than the love of the sport.

Over the years, she has married, raised two children, Graham and Angela, introducing them to the sport of competitive cycling and lately seen her first grandchild, Ailsa, take her turn as a competitor in the Club’s Summer League. She has played a very active role in coordinating the Club’s long running Summer League Competition and has acted as a constant voice of encouragement to a succession of young cyclists, seeing many of them progress to become Scottish Champions. To this day, she is still actively involved in encouraging our current crop of young riders to achieve their ambitions.

It is true to say that, without the unstinting work and dedication of this remarkable woman, 42 years as a committee post holder for Forres Cycling Club that the Club may not have survived to this day in its current, vibrant, financially strong form. Indeed, many of the cycling clubs in the North of Scotland area have reason to be grateful to Mary Bell, the timekeeper and recorder of so many races.