Chairs of any TOPRA Committee, Working Party or Special Interest Group can nominate any colleague on that group for an award. At least one other TOPRA member should also counter-sign the nomination.

The deadline for 2023 nominations is 17:00 (BST) / 18:00 (CEST) on Friday 1 September 2023.

Nominations should be based on the volunteer service given to TOPRA in the year since the last Annual Review Meeting (ARM), with recipients then being announced at the following ARM.

Any type of volunteer service can be considered. For example, exceptional commitment to attendance at committee meetings, effective chairing or a particularly high-quality piece of work completed for TOPRA. If in doubt, please contact our Membership team for guidance and advice.

If you would like to make a nomination, please complete the nomination form and email it to execsupport@topra.org in confidence.

Please note: you should NOT advise the nominee that you are putting their name forward.

We will submit all nominations to the TOPRA Board who will consider them and decide, from their knowledge of what volunteers in TOPRA do for the organisation, whether to approve the nomination. They may contact the proposer for more information as part of this review. The process is confidential and the decisions made are at the discretion of the Board and final.

We will then contact the nominee to advise them that they have successfully been nominated, and by whom, and invite them to attend the next TOPRA Annual General Meeting to receive their certificate.

The Distinguished Service Award certificate and badge are awarded to all successful nominees.

Announcement of the award’s recipient/s are announced at the Annual Review Meeting, in the InTouch member newsletter and in the Annual Report.

Nominations may be made by any member or any staff member, but not by a member of the team being nominated.

The deadline for 2023 nominations is 17:00 (BST) / 18:00 (CEST) on Friday 1 September 2023.

Nominations should be based on the volunteer service given to TOPRA in the year since the last Annual Review Meeting (ARM).

The recipients of the Top Team Award will be decided annually and ratified at the September Board (or the meeting in the month prior to the ARM), and then announced at the following ARM.

This award is intended to recognise the contribution of teams and the excellent work they deliver, be it an ad hoc working party, a permanent working party or a permanent standing committee. If in doubt, please contact our Membership team for advice.

The TOPRA Board may not be nominated as a Top Team, however teams led by or including Board members will be eligible.

Nominations must be made in writing using the nomination form, and the nominator must address aspects of the team’s work that make their performance exceptional, over and above what would be expected of any committee working for a professional organisation. 

The criteria is not formally laid down or intended to be unduly prescriptive as it is anticipated that there will be many ways in which a team could be considered to be the ‘Top’. The aim is not to select the ‘best’ team based on set criteria, but to use the information provided in the nomination to make a subjective judgement.

We will submit all nominations to the TOPRA Board for their consideration and their decision is final. Ratification will take place at the Board meeting prior to the ARM (usually September) and will occur only once a year.

There is no limit to how many times a team can be nominated (or win) for a Top Team Award.

Once selected, we will advise the Chair of the team and ask for a list of all its members who have contributed during the year.

The winners (and from time to time, runners up) are announced at the ARM, in the InTouch member newsletter and in the Annual Report.

Each member of the team will receive a certificate and the Chair will be advised of a sum of money that the team can spend on a team dinner.