Netballer wins local community award
We all know the name RBS and associate them with sponsoring Rugby, The Open Golf, Formula 1 and Andy Murray, but not with netball to date. However, they also run local award schemes for their employees who work on projects within the local community in their spare time. The awards scheme has been in place for 10 years and RBS have given out 45000 awards totalling a wonderful £16 million with a lot of the monies going to people working within cricket and football.
One of their employees is Denise Novis from The Bedford & District Netball League who has been playing netball for 30 years – in fact she started a National Westminster Bank team in 1978 and now plays at Wing Attack for Kestrels one of the local teams in the lst Division. Denise has always lived in Bedford and has been involved with running her team – all the administration, finding umpires, sorting out a team every week etc – for all that time. Her Dad used to manage Bedford Town Football club and her daughter has now joined her playing netball so they are a sporting family.
Following the success of her Manager in getting an award for his work within cricket locally Denise decided that it would be great if netball could benefit from this really good scheme. She has been with Nat West/RBS for over 30 years working as a cashier in the High Street branch in Bedford. So with awards ranging from £100 to £250 Denise kept her fingers crossed. Imagine her delight when she was granted the maximum £250 but that was not the end of it – Denise decided to give the money to her local league.
She said “I and my daughter Chloe have enjoyed being part of the Bedford & District Netball League for many years. I have met so many people who are involved in different aspects of the game from players to umpires, coaches to committee members. A lot of time is given to help children and adults get the most from our game. I wanted to give something back to the sport that has given me so much pleasure over the years and I hope will continue to do so for many years to come”.
The Bedford & District Netball League were so pleased with the monies – getting any sponsorship these days is so hard – and for one of our own members to give up the award they had been presented with for all their own hard work was so appreciated. After much persuasion Denise allowed the League to spend some of the money on a Cup for the winners of their Summer League – to be called of course The Denise Novis Cup.
Heather Nolan
November 2010