Convention exhibition breaks records in both quantity and quality - Head Judge Dr Richard Emsley said 'the judges knew they had their work cut out based on the increase in numbers, but when we saw the quality we knew we were going to have tough day. When you see a top class exhibit, doing justice to the effort put in weighs heavily on the whole judging team'.

The quality of the exhibis showed through with 13 out of 29 competitive exhibits being awarded gold medals.

The Best in Show award went to Mark Collins (pictured above receiving his trophy from OMRS President, Air Commodore Graham Pitchfork) – better known in the medal collecting fraternity as ‘Taff’ - for his superbly researched exhibit ‘Long Service & Good Conduct Medals to the 41st (The Welsh) Regiment 1830-1881’. For this he had compiled a nominal roll of recipients with biographies and medal entitlements.

The best first-time exhibitor was Meurig Jones with ‘British Empire Casualties of the Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902’.

Members attending the Convention selected Alan Seldon’s ‘Executed as British Spies in World War One’ for the members' Choice Award. This superb exhibition about Belgians executed by the Germans for working for the British between 1914 and 1918 exemplified the high standard of research on show this year.

But probably the biggest cheer of the day was for the announcement that Lionel Digby, who has exhibited at every Convention since the event was founded in 1978, had won his first-ever Gold Medal. ‘The Moonlight Charge’ featured medals and militaria from his magnificent Household Cavalry collection.

A full listing of exhibits and results will follow.

Speakers for Convention 2017 Announced. The speakers will be:

James Davies - The Ministry of Defence Medal Office – Honouring History and Inspiring the Future;

David Langrish - Commemorating Conscription: Papers of the Middlesex Military Service Appeal Tribunal.

Gurinder Singh Mann - Anglo-Sikh Wars; a Journey into Sikh Relics and Artefacts in the UK.

Full details of the speakers and their presentations available here.

The Society is delighted to announce the publication of Norman Gooding’s new book Honours and Awards to Women The Royal Navy.

Norman Gooding is one of Britain’s leading experts on honours and awards to women, in addition to being a past President and a long-serving General Secretary of the Orders and Medals Research Society. Honours and Awards to Women The Royal Navy is his third work in a series of such books. Divided into sections on Queen Alexandra’s Royal Naval Nursing Service, the Voluntary Aid Detachments who assisted them, the Women’s Royal Naval Service and the Women’s Royal Naval Reserve, it contains the fruits of a lifetime’s research inone easy-to-use volume. There are full rolls of all honours bestowed on those who served in the separate women’s sections of the Royal Navy until these were absorbed into the main body of the service in modern times. There is also a list of those who received long service medals and a mass of information about campaign medals. The book is a unique reference work.

Available in late March 2017, 155mm x 234mm, soft bound with colour cover, 132 pages, numerous black and white illustrations, ISBN 978-0-9568266-9-5. This limited edition is priced at £5.00 to members (restricted to one copy each) and £10.00 to non-members, plus post and packing. Order and pay using credit and debit cards via the Society website: www.omrs.org Members and non-members may also order by post with a cheque (made payable to ‘OMRS’) via the General Secretary (enquiries to: generalsecretary@omrs.org): PO Box 1220, Spalding, PE11 9FZ, United Kingdom.

A huge amount of knowledge is held by members as a result of their research into their medals and collections. The aim of the Convention Exhibition is to encourage as many members as possible to exhibit in order to present their knowledge and share the results of their research with other members. We hope that as many members as possible will take part and hope they find the exhibition to be an enjoyable, but challenging, experience.

Exhibition Classes

To enable members to present their exhibits in the way most appropriate to the subject there are four exhibition classes available:

• Open Class
• Single Subject Class
• Research Class
• Non-Competitive Class

Exhibitor Guidelines give clear guidance on exhibiting in each class.

Exhibitors should register to exhibit using the Convention Booking Form.

In addition to the formal exhibition classes, there is the coveted Members’ Choice award where members vote for the best exhibit.