Jane Humphries joined the Badminton Umpires Association of England in November 1988, reaching the highest international level, BWF Certificated Umpire, in 2005 at the World Championships held in Los Angeles. During her career Jane has regularly been selected to officiate at the highest levels of world badminton. including the World Junior Championships, Commonwealth Games, World Championships, BWF Super-Series Finals and the London Olympic Games. Jane has also found time to become qualified as a Regional Assessor, National Assessor and Training course tutor, passing her vast experience onto others.
Jane was a member of the National Committee of the BUAofE for 30 years, in a number of roles including Training Secretary and a member of the National Selection Sub-Committee. In addition Jane was Honorary Secretary of the BUAofE (2006-2014), Vice President of the BUAofE (2014-2017) and President of the BUAofE (2017-2024). In July 2024, the BUAofE was pleased to offer Jane the position of Honorary Life Vice-President of the BUAofE
Dave Martin joined the BUAofE in 1994, and in 2009, he was awarded Badminton Europe Certificated umpire status. Dave joined the National Committee of the BUAofE in 2002, and fulfilled a number of roles, including as a member of the Training and National Selections Sub-Committees. In addition, he was Regional Secretary of North Region for 7 years (2002-2009). He served as Chairman of the BUAofE for the 2017-2018 season.
Dave also became a Regional Assessor in 2003 and a National Assessor on 2007.
The BUAofE was pleased to nominate both Jane and Dave, and they join a very small number of our members to receive this award.
Amanda Balaam was nomiated for Technical Official of the Year - the following is only an abstract from the lengthy citation submitted to Badminton England to support her nomination;
Amanda is the Honorary Secretary of the Badminton Umpires Association of England (BUAofE). Her commitment is total both as the main administrator of the Association and as an experienced Badminton Europe Confederation (BEC) Certificated umpire. Throughout Amanda maintains excellent communications with the entire membership, bringing them up to date on all recent developments within the Association and in particular changes to the Laws of Badminton, Instructions to Technical Officials (ITTOs) and General Competition Regulations (GCR).
As an umpire Amanda has officiated at a total of 18 events in 2024 travelling a total of 3460 miles to achieve this. This comprised 10 ‘local’ events in North Region (Lancashire, Cheshire, Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire), 5 ‘National’ events (all three SCC premiership weekends, U19 Nationals, English National Championships, All England Open) and 2 events at which she represented England at the Arctic Open and Luxembourg Open. In the year she has umpired 95 matches and service judged 62 matches, a total of 157 duties and these included officiating in a total of 18 finals. Amanda is one of only six assessors within the BUAofE. She regularly acts as an appraiser to offer support and guidance to less experienced umpires at events. In addition to her unstinting commitment to and volume of work in her voluntary role as Secretary, Amanda finds time to play league badminton on a regular basis.
Amanda’s impact on our Association is immense and far reaching.
She not only carries out her own responsibilities with complete professionalism (as detailed above) but also ensures that all the other post holders within the BUAofE carry out theirs in a timely and proper manner. This results in not only the membership being kept fully informed and organised but also the hundreds of tournament organisers, referees and players who benefit from the services of our umpires and service judges.
The BUAofE has taken huge steps forward within its organisation in the past year, and this is in no small measure all down to Amanda driving these important developments.
On behalf of all the members of the Association, we offer them all our hearty Congratulations !