FROM YOUR EDITORS Outstanding Contribution Awards 2022

Congratulations to all our SCBWI-BI superstars!

The SCBWI-BI conference in Manchester, this past November, gave us the opportunity to celebrate our hardworking volunteers in person for the first time in two years. SCBWI is all about volunteering and here are the people who make everything you love possible.

Steering Committee Awards

Alison Gardiner

Alison hit the ground running by taking on the conference Co-Chair role. Undaunted, she has seamlessly managed the budget while juggling the to-do list and building the team with such good humour and fabulous community spirit. Already it feels like she’s a veteran volunteer.

Catherine Whitmore

Catherine Whitmore’s leadership guided the Networks through the pandemic with positivity and patience. She ran an amazing series of wellbeing workshops, recruited countless new volunteers while building community and improved communication, taking Networks from strength to strength.

Words & Pictures Award

Fran Price, Deputy Editor

Fran has not only been tirelessly supporting the Editor as her Deputy for the last 12 months but she has often proactively taken a lead on content creation, management and editing of Words & Pictures. She is simply the spine of the magazine, (pun intended)!

Tita Berredo, Illustration Editor

Tita has taken a lead on all things illustration since her appointment a year ago. Thanks to her innovative approach and can-do attitude illustration features in the magazine have gone from strength to strength.

Tracy Curran, Production Editor

Tracy has worked very hard to revise the publishing guidelines and establish sound house style guidelines for W&P. She also expanded the sub-editor pool and provided numerous training sessions to
the new recruits.

Networks Award

Onie Tibbitt & Caroline Deacon: Scotland

Onie and Caroline are a formidable team of enthusiastic NO’s, who have organised a flurry of PULSE writer and illustrator workshops, a retreat and community building events. They are organised, professional and a dream to work with.

Lydia Massiah: South West

Lydia works quietly and conscientiously to build community and to connect members in a network where our members are particularly spread out. Many of her members are ‘writing in the wilds’, but Lydia goes above and beyond!

Member Services Award

Anne Boyere 

Anne has taken over the SCBWI Twitter chat, creating an exciting and popular programme that engages both members and non-members, taking it from strength to strength.

Events Awards

Susan Bain 

Through thick and thin Susan has been a stalwart, the backbone of the Writer’s Retreat. She is forward-thinking and wants only the best for her fellow members. Plus she is a fabulous person to work with!

Terri Trimble

For several years Terri has quietly brought the Agents' Party and now Agents Intensives to members by creating the impeccable email campaigns, organising pitches and 1-1 raffles. She is unflappable, always smiling and the loveliest person to work with.

Camilla Chester

Over the years Camilla has been an amazing volunteer in many capacities, notably for the Industry Insiders team. Her enthusiasm for helping other creatives, ingenuity in adapting events to difficult circumstances and wonderful calming presence are award worthy!

 

Mandy Rabin

Mandy has made a massive contribution to the Industry Insiders team by reimagining the 1-1 Festival, developing an improved system for organising the event which will benefit future volunteers and members.

PULSE Award

Mo O’Hara

Working solo on the PULSE programme Mo reimagined and led several hugely successful online mini-conferences aimed at published members. An integral part of the conference team she’s known for her generosity, enthusiasm and sense of humour.

Conference Committee Award

Anne Gamble: Conference Team

Anna has also been absolutely wonderful, rising to her role brilliantly, often offering herself to do extra work, meeting deadlines, being efficient, friendly and a hugely helpful pro-active team member.

 

Sean Noonan: Conference Bookings

Sean’s consistently calm, can-do attitude is a key part of making the conference run so smoothly. Despite the fact he’s often in far-flung corners of the world with dodgy internet access, he’s always got a cheerful solution. He can solve anything!

Undiscovered Voices Award

Benjamin Scott, Catherine Coe, Simon James Green and Jenny Glencross

A huge thanks to the valued Undiscovered Voices team, whose hard work and dedication made UV into what it is today – a brilliant stepping stone for nearly 100 SCBWI writers. They always went above and beyond from outreach to reading submissions to leading workshops to publishing the anthology to mentoring writers.

They have made UV a bit better every year! Though they are stepping away from the planning committee their legacy will live on.

All Star Awards

Sara Grant

Sara is so incredibly generous and deserves every ounce of praise and thanks we can fling at her. From founding the Networks to running Bootcamp and jumping in to help with the Agents’ Party & Masterclasses, there is hardly anything Sara hasn’t managed. But most significantly, we thank her for her vision and leadership of the UV project. What a talent, what a legend, what a lovely lady!

Kathy Evans

Kathy has spearheaded the BI region’s DEI initiatives and persevered in a high-pressure and busy finance volunteer role with grace and skill, supporting her co-RA and the whole team. She is never too busy to help a fellow creative. We are so lucky to have worked together – what a gem!

Congratulations and thanks to ALL our amazing volunteers! 

* header image by Paul Morton

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Paul Morton runs Hot Frog Graphics illustration and design studio and is the author of Bug Belly – Babysitting Trouble. His second book Bug Bully – Froggy Rescue was published in 2021. Find Paul at Hot Frog Graphics website  and on Twitter @paulhotfrog

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Stephanie Cotela is the Events Editor for Words & Pictures Magazine.