The Alliance's guide to writing a nomination for the King's Birthday and New Year Honours

Decisions on nominations usually take between 12-18 months, so now is a great time to nominate for next year’s lists, and we’re here to support you in that process. Don’t worry if you’re not ready to nominate yet though – there is no closing date!

A phenomenal number of volunteers, coaches, administrators and others are involved in community sport and recreation, with so many of them deserving of recognition for the time and effort they put in to improving people’s lives on a daily basis.

The Alliance has written the following guide, taken from information from the Cabinet Office, to help you with writing your application, which we are able to submit on the nominated individual’s behalf.

There are a few initial considerations to take about the individual before nominating:

• Have they made a tangible difference to people’s lives through sport and/or recreation?
• Has the work they’ve done contributed to improving the lives of those who would otherwise struggle to be involved in sport and/or recreation, or those living in deprived communities?
• Have they sustained a level of voluntary service for a number of years?
• Have they been innovative in their methods?
• Have they contributed in a special way to British life, or enhanced the reputation of their country through their work?

If they have done all or some of these things, then we’d love to submit a nomination for them. When writing the application, consider:

• How were things before they started, and how have they changed since?
• How is what they are doing different from others working in the sport and recreation sector?
• Can you show how they have become a role model, or earned respect?
• Can you show how they have demonstrated moral courage, vision, the ability to make tough choices, determined application and hard work?
• Have they worked through adversity?
• Can you speak from first-hand experience?
• How have they gone above and beyond what would be considered ‘normal’ in their job? Just showing things they have done as part of their role will not be enough.
• At every stage, give hard evidence to back up your claims – the honours committees won’t know anything about your candidate, so anything clear and concrete you can add to support your case is helpful.

There are a couple things to avoid:

• Making the application read as though it’s a CV.
• Purely listing their achievements or positions they have held.

With your application, please send us your nominee’s full name, age and address.

Nominations are open all year round, but it often takes 12-18 months for applications to be assessed, so it may take some time to hear if it has been successful or not. Successful applications will be put forward for whichever list is coming up next.

Please send your application to info@sportandrecreation.org.uk, and we will be able to submit it for you. Good luck!

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