1. The Golden Spanner Award shall be made to a Meccanoman in recognition of his outstanding contribution and activity in promoting Meccano as a hobby on a local or national or international level; encouraging the construction of Meccano models which instruct, entertain and amuse audiences of all ages; using Meccano as a means of educating young and old in engineering principles; or using Meccano as a tool to prototype inventions, to assist designers or to build functional equipment. The Golden Spanner Award is not a prize for a competition, a model, a model plan, exceptional Meccano articles, collections etc.

2. The Golden Spanner Award will comprise a trophy that will reside with the Donor of the Award or at such other place as the Donor may decide from time to time, together with a Diploma and a lapel-pin faced with a replica Golden Spanner to be presented to each Golden Spanner Laureate.

3. The Golden Spanner Award, first awarded in 2001 (the Centenary of Meccano), will be made annually, provided that a suitable nominee is forthcoming.

4. The Award is to be made to a living person.

5. Current members of the ISM committee are excluded as nominees.

6. Each year, the ISM will contact all Meccano clubs whose existence (including contact address) is known to the Society, inviting them to make a nomination for the Award in the current year.

7. A nominee shall be a single individual or, at the discretion of the Jury, two people whose contribution to each other’s endeavours in Meccano are considered to have produced a joint contribution to Meccano commensurate with that of a single individual.

8. A nominee must be nominated to the Jury by a Meccano club or group of clubs. How a club or group of clubs decides whom to nominate is the concern of the club or the group. The nominee need not be a member of the nominating club or group, or a member of the ISM.

9. In making a nomination to the Jury for consideration for the Golden Spanner Award, a nominating club or group of clubs must provide details of the nominee’s name, address and age. In addition, information should be provided about the nominee’s career in Meccano, when the nominee first became interested in Meccano, what clubs, if any, he is affiliated with and what sort of Meccano-related activities he engages in. The nomination should give particular emphasis to the esteem with which the nominee is regarded by his fellow Meccanomen as a humanitarian rather than as a modeller.

10. Each year, the Chairman of the Jury shall be the Donor of the Award or, failing him, the Chairman of the ISM for the time being, who shall invite four other members of the ISM to join him in comprising the Jury for that year, one of whom shall act as Secretary to the Jury for that year.

11. The names of all nominees, except that of the Laureate, shall remain confidential to the members of the Jury.

12. When the Jury has made a decision to offer the Award to a nominee, the Chairman of the Jury will inform the Laureate and invite him to accept the Award.

13. If the Laureate accepts the Award, his name will be announced at the Annual General Meeting of the ISM and the Diploma and lapel-pin will then be presented or sent to him.

14. In any year, if none of the proposed nominees fulfils the criteria, the Award will not be presented in that year.

15. Each Laureate’s name will be engraved on a silver plate on the stand of the trophy.

16. A report on the Golden Spanner Awards event will be published in International Meccanoman and on the ISM website on the internet.

17. The decision of the Jury is final and not subject to appeal.