Awards and Prizes for outstanding contribution or service to the Society or the Society’s journal 'Weather'

Mrs Marcia Spencer

Marcia Spencer has been an important member of the Society’s headquarters team for almost ten years, overseeing an active meetings programme. During her time at the Society she has been involved in successfully delivering more than 700 events, and has been the driving force behind many of them - especially the National Meetings and Annual General Meetings.

She has also provided support to the Local Centres and Special Interest Groups, ensuring they too deliver a range of interesting events.

Marcia contributed in changing the Society’s meetings programme supporting the launch of new Local Centres including the Yorkshire, Welsh and South West local centres and the launch of new Special Interest Groups like the Weather Arts and Music (WAM) and the Climate Science SIGs. 

Marcia has helped transform the Society’s meeting programme through the introduction of live streaming events to make our meetings more accessible to all and has worked tirelessly to ensure all our events run smoothly.

Here are a few thoughts from members of the Society’s Meetings Committee:

“The name ‘Marcia Spencer’ is synonymous with RMetS meetings”

“Marcia has done a huge amount for the Society and I for one will miss her very much, as I am sure will others. I wish her well for the future and hope that she stays in touch with her friends and colleagues in the Society”

“Marcia has frequently gone above and beyond the call of duty to help us to pull together and deliver our events. The consistently positive feedback our meetings receive is a testament to Marcia’s hard work. The meetings committee has been extremely fortunate to have such a dedicated member of staff behind it”

Mr David Bowker

David Bowker has been a keen amateur member of the Society, contributing to its aims and helping to educate many in our science – not least in the lessons he gives as a geography (and Classics) teacher. This is shown well in seven interesting papers he has written for Weather, as well as many photographs he has contributed for publication for more than 35 years.

He was an invaluable member of the Weather Editorial Board between 2014 and 2019; his keenness for meteorology was always evident and he was always engaged. David Bowker is a good reviewer, reflecting his knowledge as an author who has always promoted the Royal Meteorological Society. This is particularly notable, given that he is not a professional meteorologist. His high standard of English came in particularly useful as a reviewer and, when necessary, he always referred matters beyond his knowledge to the Editor or other Editorial Board members.

In 2015, he helped to select a guest Editor for the Young Peoples’ Special Issue and assisted in the review of papers to be published in it. He also deputised for the Editor during the latter’s summer holidays in 2015 and 2016, dealing with urgent matters and ensuring publication could proceed.

David Bowker became Book Reviews Editor in 2016, before relinquishing this role in 2017, when he became one of the Weather Image Editors. David carried out this shared role for more than two years. He always sourced interesting images to illustrate the weather of the past month with little need to ask for assistance and worked well with his co-editor in the role. While carrying out all these duties, he was always able to work through life changes – in particular, two moves of school whilst he was on the Board, one of which was a long drive from home. He was an invaluable member of the Board.