Door drop industry celebrates its best with Arthur Thompson Memorial Award

Earlier this month the door drop industry’s highest accolade, the Arthur Thomson Memorial Trophy, was presented to Chris Roxburgh, the former MD of LinkDirect Ltd and long-time serving member of the DMA Door Drop Council and its MLA working party in recognition of his contribution to the door drop industry over the course of his 40-year career.

The Arthur Thompson Award was created by the DMA Door Drop Council following the death in 2006 of Arthur Thompson as a memorial to a man that made an immense contribution to growing the door drop industry. The Award is presented when one person is singled out for recognition by his peers for their outstanding work in developing the door drop industry.

At a lunch in his honour attended by 14 former industry peers, Chris was presented with an engraved trophy by Steve Thompson, managing director of Stepcheck in memory of his father. I too paid tribute to Chris in a speech which outlined his career which spans over 40 years in the direct marketing industry.

Chris was a founder member of the British Household Distribution Association, which merged into the Association of Household Distributors, which subsequently merged into the DMA and was a founder member of the Door Drop Council, which he served for over a decade. At that point, Chris also chaired the Committee which updated the AHD Code of Practice and Best Practice Guidelines into a DMA format. When the Membership, Legal and Administrative Committee was formed under the chair of Roger Sparrow, Chris became a member for over a decade which entailed constant travel from his base on the Wirral. Chris was also a leading figure in the creation of the Your Choice preference service, which to this day, is still a cornerstone of the industry’s opt out service.

In response, to the tributes Chris said he was “Honoured to have received the award and flattered to become only the fifth recipient of an award in memory of a man who was an industry giant, following from other industry leaders.”

I can say that Chris truly deserves to be in such illustrious company.

Previous recipients of the Arthur Thompson Memorial Trophy:

2013 – Chris Roxburgh
2011 – Roger Sparrow
2010 – Jayne Ferguson & Steve Mulvihill
2007 – Peter Morgan

By DMA guest blogger Graham Dodd, Managing Director of The Letterbox Consultancy