Derek Cook Memorial Trophy for Services to Refereeing 

This trophy was donated to Squash NZ in 1981 by Kelvin Harding in honour of his best friend Derek Cook who was killed in a car accident just north of Levin on 1st September 1980. At the time of his death, Derek was a National Referee and an A Grade squash player in Wellington. This trophy is awarded for the most significant contribution in the field of refereeing during the year.

There were five nominations for the award in 2016 and these were

• Chris Buckland
• Glenn Carson
• Jackie Hamilton
• Mike Jack
• Janet Udy

Jackie Hamilton was formally acknowledged for winning this award on the Sunday 21st August at the New Zealand Senior Nationals Formal Prizegiving. Jackie has moved away from her playing career to pursue refereeing at a higher level.

Jackie has done a large amount of work in her home town and is committed to her local squash club the Cromwell Community Squash Club.

Jackie has attended the Waikato Open PSA, Burnside International PSA and the ILT and Community Trust NZ Southern PSA this year and most recently she attended the Victorian Open in the hopes of achieving her Oceania Regional Referees Status.

Jackie is very committed to her refereeing and she is also a busy mother following after her children who are into water-skiing; a committed wife and business owner of the Cromwell Pharmacy. It can be very costly for Jackie to leave her business behind with it costing her to come away and volunteer at events as she has to get cover in to run her store.

Jackie has performed very well this year and a combination of her contribution to refereeing both within New Zealand and Australia has bought her to the attention of even a number of the Australian officials. John Small from Australia has noted Jackie as a great ambassador for our referees overseas performing very well in her time in Australia.

Jackie has shown great improvement and is continually developing herself at every opportunity she gets. Jackie is potentially the first female referee to be the centre referee on a PSA Men’s 10K final refereeing the Christchurch PSA final. Jackie also undertook the centre referee position of the New Zealand Senior Nationals Men’s Open Final and this is potentially the first time this has ever happened in New Zealand squash history.

Jackie is a worthy recipient of the 2016 Derek Cook Memorial Trophy.