JOHN DENNISON AWARD 2020

The John Dennison Lifetime Achievement Award is presented at the Borderway UK Dairy Expo annually.

This award is in honour of John Dennison who was a skilled dairy farmer, an excellent Holstein breeder, a marvellous motivator and an inspiration to everyone he met and above all his family came first.  He was a superb marketeer and promoter of the Holstein cow and his enthusiasm and friendliness attracted many new people into our business.  His legacy will live on through his sons Andrew, Michael and Stephen and his numerous grand-children.
This award is designed to honour those qualities.

The 2020 award was presented to Blaise Tomlinson from the Sandyford herd based in Leicestershire.

Blaise has won more Championship Rosettes than anyone at the UK Dairy Expo event today.  He has won Interbreed Championships at the Royal Lancs, Dairy Event, Cheshire Show, South West Dairy Event, Agriscot, Royal Welsh, Royal Norfolk and UK Dairy Day plus many many more Breed Championships, Heifers Championships and Junior Championships.

The most famous cow from this great herd is Sandyford Clover.  She was the crowd favourite everywhere is went classifying EX97.  She won them all being Supreme at the Royal, Royal Welsh, Great Yorkshire, Dairy Event on four occasions and Agriscot twice.  Her legacy is her progeny both sons and daughters who continue to impact the Ayrshire breed in a massive way.  Her granddaughter broke the Ayrshire breed record price just a few weeks ago in the Black & White Sale, selling for 14,000gns with contending bidders on the phone from the USA.

But Blaise is so much more than a great farmer, breeder and showman.  His family are amazing and a real credit to both him and Debra.  His daughters Evie, Millie and Annabelle are all passionate about this great industry and are all involved at home.  They have looked after the show string this week and they didn’t do too bad winning Grand Champion & Junior Champion and actually won Reserve Champion with their own four year old Allstar Provider Honesty.

Encouraging the next generation into dairy farming, showing and the breed associations has been a big part of Blaise’s life.  He has organised Weekend Rallies for the Young Breeders and has always been there providing calves and advice to numerous young people over the years.   At the National Show he took an extra six cows for the past few years just so the Youth had animals to prepare on their own.

He has been a past Chairman of both the Lancashire and Derbyshire Ayrshire Clubs and was the Chairman for four years of the East Midlands Holstein Club and played an pivotal role in organising the HYB National Weekend Rally in 2018.

This unique award is given to the nominee judged to have the perfect combination of ability, sportsmanship, integrity and character within the Dairy Industry.

Glyn Lucas at Harrison and Hetherington said: “This award really is a unique award for UK Dairy Industry. It recognises people who shine and who have put their lifetimes work into the industry, just like all the previous winners”.

Previous Achievement Winners include –