The 2013 Trinity Mirror/ScottishPower Your Champions scheme comes to a glittering climax on Friday with the annual awards ceremony at the Crowne Plaza in Chester.
Taking pride of place at the event will be all of the Ellesmere Port Pioneer title winners which we are delighted to highlight in today’s edition.
On Friday, each of these local winners will go up against their counterparts in the Chester, Flintshire, South Cheshire, Wirral and Runcorn & Widnes areas, hoping to pick up the title of Overall Winners in their categories.
And on the night, we will also be revealing the Champion of Champions – the most outstanding winner across all categories of this year’s competition.
But whoever wins what on the night, everyone who is honoured at the ceremony is already deserving of the title Your Champion.
Young person of the year - Tyler Jay Faulkner
The quick-thinking actions of a six-year-old boy saved his mum’s life when her heart stopped, causing her to fall down the stairs.
Tyler-Jay Faulkner immediately called his father when his mum Annemarie Marsden suddenly fell ill at home on the evening of Monday, October 7.
Tyler-Jay was told by his dad Tommy Faulkner to phone 999 and slapped Annemarie’s face to get her to come round.
Tommy said: “The doctors said they think her heart stopped beating and that if he hadn’t managed to wake her, she wouldn’t have survived, so he really did save her life.
“He’s very smart but really, he’s just a normal little boy. You never really expect a young person to be able to do something like that and stay so calm. He was chatting away to the paramedic when I arrived.”
Annemarie was taken to the Countess of Chester Hospital where she was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a genetic condition where the wall of the heart muscle becomes thickened, making it harder to pump blood around the body.
On Wednesday, October, 9, she was transferred to the Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital where she underwent surgery to have an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) fitted.
The ICD is a small device which regulates abnormal heart rhythms by giving the heart electric shocks.
Annemarie had been suffering from heart palpitations and dizzy spells on and off for six weeks before the episode.
She was discharged from hospital on Thursday, October 10, and is recovering at home.
She has been advised to avoid any strenuous activity for the next six weeks so Tommy has moved in to help her with Tyler-Jay and their eight-month-old baby boy Bobby-Ray.
Tommy said he and Annemarie were ‘made up’ with the treatment she received at both hospitals: “I was very impressed, especially by how fast she was transferred to Liverpool.
“We were only there for half an hour before she was prepped for the procedure.”
Tyler-Jay, who only celebrated his sixth birthday on October 1, returned to William Stockton Community Primary School the next day.
Tommy said: “He’s fine now, he’s enjoying all the praise from everyone.”
Team of the year - The Paperboat Gallery
A community gallery which opened in Ellesmere Port earlier this year after months of building work and refurbishment has been declared the Ellesmere Port Team of the Year.
The Paperboat Gallery on Whitby Road, Ellesmere Port, opened its doors to the public in May and has been put forward in the Team of the Year category.
Sonja Moss-Dolega, the executive director of the gallery, said: “It took months of hard work by many people and we are all very proud of how the gallery has come together.
“Our aim is to inspire and nurture creativity in Ellesmere Port and the surrounding area and we have made an excellent start.
“Everyone who sees the gallery is stunned by how it looks and by the exquisite art work we are exhibiting here.”
The building was gutted and rebuilt by Access to Work, a team of community project builders and trainees.
The transformation was completed by German company RaumCult who drove through the night from Munich with a van full of hand-crafted furniture and fittings they had manufactured over several weeks in their workshop.
The gallery team, made up of volunteers, was on hand to help visitors make their own paper boat in the workshop area.
You can phone the gallery on 0151 378 1794 or just pop into the gallery during opening hours, Tuesday to Friday 10am-5pm and Saturdays 10am-4.30pm.
Champion person of the year - Carol Stott
Carol Stott has been described as Neston’s leading youth worker.
For more than three decades she has been involved in youth activities in the town, becoming a youth worker for St Helen’s Church on retirement from full-time employment.
Alan Johnson, himself a founder member of the Northern Lights children’s charity which sends seriously ill children on Christmas holidays of a lifetime in Lapland said: “For well over 30 years Carol has been actively involved with the youth of the parish of Neston. She has given up so much of her spare time to ensure they are actually doing something other than hanging around.
“She has organised many a youth weekend, both within the parish and elsewhere in the diocese.
“Also there have been several retreats to the Isle of Iona in Scotland.
“Now she is well into her 60s and is beginning to think that maybe it is time to hand over the reins to a younger person.
“She has never done this to be thanked and having assisted Carol at times over the years and seen the amount of time and effort she has put in I just thought it would be a fitting way to publicly acknowledge what she has done.”
Alan points out Carol has started youth clubs and been involved in their running, never the easiest of tasks, and obtained funding for a cyber cafe.
Volunteers of the year - Friends & Volunteers of Ness Gardens
Ness Gardens have been open to the public since they were first planted at the beginning of the 1900s by the Bulley family.
The gardens contain many unusual plants brought to the UK by some of the well renowned collectors such as George Forrest and Frank Kingdon Ward who had been sponsored by Arthur Kiplin Bulley.
The gardens were donated to Liverpool University after the Second World War.
Many people wonder just how the gardens are kept in such good shape and how, in 2008, Ness won the Cheshire Gardens competition.
The answer is far from straightforward as it is down to history, the goodwill of the university, dedicated staff and a network of volunteers.
The volunteers of Ness have been quietly supporting the superb gardens for many years.
They perform a variety of functions from gardening through to meeting and greeting visitors, including assisting in the plant sales and assisting with cleaning and painting benches.
Ellesmere Port and Neston MP Andrew Miller, who nominated the team, said: “The volunteers support the staff of Ness, helping to maintain the gardens’ high standards and the welcoming atmosphere of this beautiful area.
“If you doubt the merit of this nomination, just pay a visit.”
Sporting champion of the year - Poppy Finlay
A promising amateur golfer from Whitby who had the chance to take on some of the leading professionals in the women’s game has been named the Ellesmere Port Sporting Champion of the Year.
Poppy Finlay, 18, was invited to take part in the WPGA International Challenge event at Stoke-by-Nayland Hotel Golf and Spa, on the Suffolk/Essex border.
The competition – part of the Ladies European Tour Access Series – featured a field including Alison Nicholas, Europe’s winning captain at the 2011 Solheim Cup and a past US Open champion.
Poppy was invited to compete along with 19 other golfers from the England Golf women’s order of merit.
Poppy’s dad Craig said: “The idea is to give them an insight into what it would be like to turn professional and compete on the Tour. Poppy was really excited and trained really hard. She is now 18 and would eventually like to turn professional.”
It has been a good year for the former Whitby High School student. This year Poppy finished ninth in the girls’ order of merit in England and was 16th in the England Golf women’s order of merit.
In April she won the Faldo Series UK Girls Championship at West Lancs Golf Club. This earned her the chance to fly to America on October 19 on an all expenses paid trip to play in the week-long Nick Faldo Grand Final at The Greenbrier Golf Club in West Virginia.
Poppy first picked up a golf club at the age of 10 and is a member of Vicars Cross Golf Club in Chester.
She is also a member of the England Futures programme, which helps the country’s most talented young players manage their academic work while also progressing with their sporting skills.
The teenager will soon begin a four-year golf scholarship at the University of Mississippi and her ambition is to one day turn professional and earn a place on the Ladies European Tour.
