Brighton Tri Club 🎉 Triathlon England Club of the Year 2015

Triathlon England (TE) hosted their Annual General Meeting (AGM) & Awards weekend at Chessington World of Adventures, in the South for the first time! Being (nearly) on our doorstep, nine members from Brighton Tri Club travelled to the resort to represent the South East Region. 

As part of their program, Triathlon England hosted a series of workshops in the morning including; correcting swim faults, strength and conditioning, encouraging women into triathlon and social media. With such a range of engaging topics, Brighton Tri Club were lucky to have coaches and members spread over the workshops. Learning and sharing with other clubs and athletes was an excellent start to a weekend dedicated to celebrating the sport. 

Following the workshops, we were invited to both the TE and British Triathlon AGMs to hear about the progress of the sport over the past 12 months. This also provided an open platform for us as members to input our thoughts and ideas of how we believe TE & BTF can continue to deliver triathlon successfully in 2016. 

Some top takeaways from the meetings were: the fabulous new branding for British Triathlon and the home nations; the #EveryRoadtoRio campaign ahead of the Olympics and the vision to establish the GoTri series as a sustainable project. The full report will be published and shared with TE Members soon.

Having won both the Triathlon England South East Club of the Year and Children’s Event of the Year we were excited and slightly nervous to attend the national awards ceremony. Sadly we did not win the Children’s Event of the Year, conceding to a long-standing event Lincoln Children’s Tri. Among the other awards, we were especially pleased to cheer our South East Region neighbours Chichester Westgate when Nicky was awarded Children's Coach of the Year!

They saved 'The Club of the Year' until last: 

The final award was for Club of the Year, and as the compere started to describe the club, many of us had the same thought: “That sounds like our club!” Once he announced the club was from the South East, I knew it was us and I had huge amounts of pride in going up to collect the award. I was so glad so many others from the club were present and could come on stage for a group photo.

The greatness of the club really is due to the sum of its parts; the members, the committee, the coaches,and the numerous volunteers. It really is such an honour to have received this highly prestigious award only two and a half years after the club was formed. To be acknowledged by our governing body is truly rewarding and a testament to the hard work and contributions of  so many people.

- Rachel Perry, Chairwoman 2014/15

We are so proud to represent Triathlon England: South East Region as TE Club of The Year 2015. It was a joyous end to the season, both being recognised for the collective club effort throughout the year and being able to celebrate on a national stage with our fellow TE Awards Winners. 

Finally, spending the evening having dinner amongst such great athletes as Jonny Brownlee, Ben Dijkstra, Non Stanford, Lucy Gossage, Mark Jenkins and Steve Trew rounded off a truly remarkable day.

Thank you to Triathlon England & British Triathlon for hosting - we hope to join you again next year!