This week we say goodbye to one of our longest serving club-people and treasured Life Member, Jenny Lemon, who will soon be making the move to Maryborough.
Many of our current members will know Jenny from supervising venues and managing games to ensure their child enjoys their basketball every Friday and Saturday. What you may not know is Jenny has a rich history dedicating herself to Pirates Basketball dating back to the late 90’s.
Jenny first got involved with the Pirates when her kids wanted to start playing the sport, joining the Runcorn Rockets club. She soon found herself managing and coaching their junior teams, something she would do for close to a decade. During this time she also a keen volunteer to run the canteen during club games for several years.
While coaching or managing junior club teams, Jenny became known for imparting plenty of positive advice to referees. This eventually caught the attention of then referee manager (and fellow life member) Anne Berry, who convinced Jenny she had a future working with officials. So in the early 2000’s Jenny started to become heavily involved in the whistle side of things, going on to become a highly credentialed referee coach and educator.
For approximately 15 years Jenny would maintain a constant presence at our club and representative fixtures to provide education - carefully guiding many generations of young referees through the ranks. Jenny would also step up and become our Referee Manager for a period of five years from 2014. All referees still with SWM today remember Jenny fondly and value the time she put in to help them become the best they can be.
Jenny was also an excellent referee in her own right, officiating representative fixtures and at state championships for many years. One of our most senior referees for a long time at club level, even as late as last year Jenny would at times pull out the whistle to help cover and officiate our junior games.
After stepping back from formal referee education roles, Jenny has devoted herself in recent years to assist in the running of our junior competitions – setting up venues, assisting teams or families, and problem solving virtually anything that came up on game day. Referee development was also still close to her heart, and she could be seen closely working with beginner refs every weekend to this day.
While sad that a massive part of our history is now leaving us, we of course wish Jenny all the very best in the next chapter in her life. Jenny has promised that she will visit us from time to time, and we look forward to welcoming her into ‘The Ship’ whenever she is back in town.
Thank you Jenny!