The Peter Wardale Memorial Award is the highest accolade which can be given to a volunteer.  The recipient of this Award is selected by the Board and is given to someone who has made an outstanding contribution to the sport of volleyball.  It is not awarded every year.

Previous winners include Freda Bussey, Dr. Don Anthony, Brian Stalker, Richard Callicott, Gordon Neale, Paul Bohannan, Keith Nicholls and last year the Bello family.

This year the award is given a long standing member of the Volleyball community Janet Inman. Janet has been involved since playing for the first time at school, since then she went on to become a club coach, then club chair, county chair in Lincolnshire for 21 years, then East Midlands chair for 10 years, then recruited by Dan Dingle, the then President of the English Volleyball Association to become the chair of the Schools and Youth Commission, from there the natural progression was to join the Volleyball England Board as the Development Director.

In addition to her role as an administrator Janet was the lead for safeguarding for Volleyball England, taking Volleyball through the Child Protection in Sport (CPSU) safeguarding standards and taking the lead at Regional and National events including the National School Games organised by the Youth Sport Trust.

Janet also was an active coach and referee at local level and as a junior coach at regional level and a team manager for Central England Cadets.

There is no role that Janet hasn’t done with enthusiasm and dedication over the years for Volleyball.

Janet is now supporting the Foundation as the Company Secretary, which is supporting the Volleyball Community.

Thank you for all you have done over the years, this is a well deserved award.

See the full interview here.