| 2006 Award Winners
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Meals on Wheels (Jersey) Sopciety
The group started in 1962 to help elderly and frail people, living in poor conditions with few cooking facilities, in the town area of Jersey. Initially the meals were delivered twice a week with food provided from a local restaurant. Nowadays the catering department of the General Hospital provides the meals, and the recipients pay for the meals at cost price. Although the meals are prepared by Hospital Catering Department, volunteers are put the food into individual servings and have delivered 27,500 meals in the past 12 months
The service has expanded in area and numbers, as the populations is living longer and people wish to remain independent at home as long as possible. The whole community benefits as public money is not spent on the service, or on additional care home beds, but more importantly, relatives know that a hot meal will be delivered and anything untoward noted and passed on.
Contact: Monica Becquet M.B.E
Call: 01534 862922 or 01534 723984
Medway Town Conservation Volunteers
Medway Town Conservation Volunteers helps towards ground maintenance and the operational status of Riverside Country Park. The organisation was set up by a group of like- minded people who had an expressed interest in conservation management and wished to improve their local environment.
Their aim is toundertake environmental restoration, whilst fostering an awareness of conservation by demonstrating and applying an interest in maintaining the park. The volunteers generate community ownership and install public interest within the park through newsletters that encourage volunteering. New members are trained and educated in countryside management.
The park receives in excess of 300,000 visitors per year and the group have successfully highlighted the importance of the English Countryside to the broader public.
Contact: James Fulwood
Call: 01795 471 008
Mobile: 0784 065 2002
Midlothian Advice and Resource Centre (MARC)
Midlothian Advice and Resource Centre (MARC) is a growing social enterprise which provides advice and information to the community about a range of services, including welfare rights, employment rights, money advice and health and safety issues. It also offers education and training and provides reused furniture and household goods to the general public through its recycling projects.
The organisation was set up in the deprived area of Woodburn at a time when unemployment was alarmingly high. Although it was initially established as a resource and information centre for the unemployed, in the past three to fours years it has branched out into recycling which has enabled a large pool of active volunteers to gain vital skills, particularly in ICT.
MARC has established itself as a successful enterprise, but just as importantly it has become the focal point of the local community. In addition to providing help and support, by reducing the waste burden in the community, MARC has had a major environmental impact. To illustrate the organisation’s achievements, in the past year MARC has supplied furniture to about 3,600 people; has carried out 560 furniture uplifts; and benefited 150 people through its advice and information services.
Although MARC has lost several sources of funding, and experienced considerable reductions in its level of grant support, the organisation manages to increase trading income and remain sustainable through its willingness to expand and innovate. However, this is not at the expense of the core aims, and the latest venture involves the development of bicycle recycling project for young people.
Contact: Richard Vivian
Call: 0131 663 0400
Website: www.midarc.org
Moffat Mountain Rescue Team
Moffat Mountain Rescue Team provides search and rescue for those who are injured, immobilised, lost or distressed in the Moffat and surrounding area.
The volunteers train in first aid and rescue methods and they regularly undertake mountain exercises to maintain fitness and ensure good knowledge of the local terrain. As well as this the volunteers also find time to fundraise to buy rescue equipment.
The group was set up by the local doctors in response to the local need for a trained search and rescue team, with knowledge of the local terrain to provide vital help during rescue missions. The Moffat rescue team has also been called out to bigger human disasters, including the recovery operation around the Panam disaster in Lockebie.
The team members are all volunteers and are on call 24 hours a day seven days a week, 365 days a year, turning out in all weather to help whenever they are needed.
Contact: Colin Mitchel
Call: 01683 222800
The National Phobics Society The National Phobics Society is a user-led mental health charity that offers support and advice to sufferers of anxiety disorders. The Society seeks to promote both relief and rehabilitation through information and self-help services. The Society also raises awareness of the difficulties sufferers face to the wider community to encourage sufferers to seek treatment and support.
The Society has been running for over 36 years, offering services across the country for sufferers of anxiety disorders. Disorders covered include agoraphobia, post traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder and specific phobias, including heights, clowns, spiders, snakes and driving. The organisation helps over 40,000 people every year, through the Society's helpline, therapy referrals, one to one counselling, self-help groups and an email support service.
Many sufferers credit the organisation with encouraging them to face their condition and seek help and advice to control it. Over 500 volunteers, many of who have suffered with an anxiety disorder, manage the centre, man the helpline and offer professional and empathetic support and advice. Volunteers are trained to help callers, offering a range of self-help services encouraging sufferers to deal with their anxiety in an effective way. Many of the volunteers are also facing their own, often-dehabilitating anxiety, and can offer an understanding as well as sympathetic ear to callers.
The Society has also recently launched a project to encourage people from Black and Minority Ethnic groups to seek help with living with an anxiety disorder. Asian Communities in particular attach a stigma to mental illness, and the 'Destigmatize' project aims to encourage members of these communities suffering from an anxiety disorder to seek confidential advice and support. The website offers fact sheets and information on its website in a variety of languages, together with a link to the main Society's website.
Chief Executive Glenmore Kingsley-Nunes said : "National Phobics Society is delighted to receive The Queen's Award for Voluntary Service in recognition of the work that we have undertaken since 1970 to support thousands of people affected by anxiety disorders. I would like to thank in particular our immensely dedicated team of volunteers, without which our organisation would not exist and Pauline Gregson for making the nomination. "
Contact: Nicky Lidbetter
Call: 0870 122 2325
Website: www.phobics-society.org.uk /
www.destigmatize.org.uk
The Murray Foundation
When people lose a limb they are very well looked after in terms of physical rehabilitation, but at such a traumatic time, there are a number of other needs that also require attention. The Murray Foundation works closely with the NHS to provide a support and counselling service to people affected by limb loss or limb absence in Scotland.
The provision of information (written, audio and visual), the arranging of events and emotional support from its volunteers, provides invaluable to help for those coping with the loss of a limb. The foundation works closely with health care professionals to supplement, rather than replace the services already offered by the NHS.
The volunteers at the Murray Foundation are all amputees who have been given counselling and rehabilitation training recognised by British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, enabling them to offer sympathetic guidance drawing from first hand experience.
Having established a number of patient and community support groups throughout Scotland, the Murray Foundation has set up a free-phone help line and publishes a newsletter called ‘Foundations’. In all its efforts The Murray Foundation shows that there is life after amputation, restoring hope to the lives of its patients and their families.
Susan Shaw, Director Murray Foundation said: “ I am both delighted and honoured that the Murray Foundation is to receive the prestigious Queens Award for Voluntary Services. Since David Murray first established the Murray Foundation in 1996, our volunteer network has offered advice and support to the many hundreds of people throughout Scotland who are affected by limb loss or absence. This award is testament to the commitment of those volunteers who give so freely of their own time and who are also willing to share their own experience of limb loss, in order to help others through, what can be, a difficult and trying time.”
Contact: Susan Shaw
Email: susie.shaw@btinternet.com
Neath Port-Talbot Cancer Challenge Charity
Neath Port-Talbot Cancer Challenge Charity raises money to buy life-saving equipment for the cancer units in local hospitals, to enable them to make earlier diagnosis of cancer and provide swift treatment and care.
The organisation was formed by Joan Lewis after she was diagnosed with cancer. She felt she had to do something positive to help the NHS and those suffering battling with cancer. A committee was formed in 1997 and since then they have worked tirelessly to raise over £500,000 in only 8 years, using any form of fundraising possible.
The charity seeks the advice of surgeons and consultants at the hospital to identify their needs and then provides the hospital with the relevant state of the art equipment.
Contact: Joan Lewis
Call: 01639 793 250
Newent Association for the Disabled
Newent Association for the Disabled provides social and recreational activities and a home-from-home centre for physically disabled people of all ages, in order to alleviate loneliness and social exclusion.
The association was set up in 1981 by 58 year old disabled Trudie Sheppard, who moved to Newent and found that there were few facilities for the disabled. She promptly set about raising funds and opened a day centre in a local Community Centre for one day a week, offering a hot meal and social interaction. She then found that transport was needed for wheelchair bound people wanting to attend, so she bought a second hand minibus and the county’s first dial a ride scheme was born.
Since then the group has remained a stand-alone voluntary charitable organisation, working closely with County District and Town Councils, providing a day centre, dial-a-ride transport service and a local shuttle service for people who are socially excluded.
The assocation’s volunteers are exceptionally dedicated people who give their spare time to assist with driving minibuses and cars to take people to and from appointments and assist with the day to day running of the centre by cooking meals.
Contact: Tony Aldridge
Mobile: 077 879 45383
Newtongrange Phoenix Club for the Disabled
Newtongrange Phoenix Club for the Disabled provides entertainment facilities and stimulations for a group of 45 adults with learning difficulties.
The 6 volunteers who run the club organise, prepare and participate in evening adventures making sure that no one is left out. The club provides stimuli and social interaction through various forms: music, dance, games and visits. During the summer time, the club takes the group on excursions and at Christmas a party is put on for the members and their families.
The volunteers all work hard to create a mutual trust with individual members of the group who have a wide range of disabilities which mean that their needs can be very different.
The group has been running for 39 years, supported by a dedicated core of volunteers, who give up their time once a week to provide a fun and entertaining evening; for many of the club members this is the highlight of their week. The Phoenix Club provides a very important service not only to the community but also to its members and their carers.
Contact: Margaret Brown
Call: 0131 663 6055
Open Country
Open Country is a Harrogate based organisation that enables people with disabilities to access the countryside. The service is available to anyone within the Harrogate Borough and provides accessible transport with trained volunteers on hand to offer assistance. Open Country provides information and advice and a full programme of countryside activities.
A registered charity, Open Country organise walks, residential weekends away, an adventure club and a programme to get carers and their dependent family members involved in countryside activities. Volunteers are an integral part of Open Country as they provide support and accompany walkers, pushing wheelchairs during activities.
With 220 visitors in the last year, Open Country provide an excellent service within the local community, but also they take part in considerable amounts of environmental conservation work on areas of public access, including the maintenance of accessible footpaths.
Contact: David Shaftoe / Sam
Call: 01423 507 227
Website: www.opencountry.org.uk
Email: info@opencountry.org.uk
Oxford Friend Gay and Lesbian Helpline
The Oxford Friend Gay and Lesbian Helpline provides the local community with confidential, professional advice, counselling and information relating to lesbian, gay and bi-sexual issues. The service has been running for over 25 years in the Oxford area, working closely with local mental health organisations in Oxfordshire to provide a high quality response both via a telephone helpline and website. The helpline runs three nights a week (Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays - 7-9 pm) and is staffed by 15 volunteers who offer support both by phone and in one to one counselling sessions. Volunteers are trained to cope with the calls that they may receive, and are supervised by more experienced volunteers to ensure the advice they are giving is both informative and productive. Within the past 18 months an email counselling service has been developed as well. The helpline works closely with the mental health charity Oxfordshire Mental Health Matters and with the Terrance Higgins Trust, and has also provided diversity training for Thames Valley Police and The Oxford Co-Operative Training Scheme.
Volunteers are crucial to the success of the organisation and are made trustees of the charity, having an active voice in monthly business meetings. Volunteers also bring their own skills to the organisation, creating and maintaining the website, operating the email service and creating advertising and publicity materials. Volunteers attribute the helpline's success to the long service of many of the volunteers, whose experience helps to provide a stable and professional provision for callers. However the organisation is a charity that relies on contributions for 50% of its income, and uses the majority of its income to inform the gay, lesbian and bisexual community about the existence of the helpline as being somewhere to turn for confidential, non-judgemental support.
Last year alone, the helpline received 180 calls, 2+ emails per week and over 5000 hits on its website, underlining the need for the service.
The Group said: "Members of Oxford Friend feel immensely proud and delighted after receiving the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service. The Award has come at a very important point in the development and history of the group, coming as it has done soon after Oxford Friend celebrated 25 years of service to the local community, a service providing counselling and support for an historically marginalised section of the population, namely lesbians and gay men and their families and friends. The Award is a very important official and public recognition of a high quality service delivered consistently over many years, a service indeed which has repeatedly adapted itself to a series of changing circumstances. The Award is a wonderful boost to the confidence of the group and a stimulus to the group as it prepares itself to continue its work in the years to come."
Contact: Oxford Friend / Harry Dickinson
Call: 01865 726893 / 0781 0544215
Website: www.oxfordfriend.co.uk
Pact – Patient and Caring Team
PACT, based in Wallasey, Merseyside offer aid, assistance and comfort and support to the elderly patients of Central Park Medical Centre. The organisation provides bereavement counselling as well as support and advice for those who are in the final stages of terminal illness and aims to help patients achieve a more balanced outlook and to come to terms with the events of their life.
The group was set up in 1991 and operates within Central Park Medical Centre. All volunteers receive four months of basic counselling training before they begin work and the centre has successfully counselled 291 patients.
PACT is an exceptional organisation due to the dedication of its volunteers who have the will and desire to help others at no gain to themselves
Contact: Kay Hitchmough
Call: 0151 638 8833
Praxis Befriending Service
Praxis Befriending Service is a voluntary mental health organisation providing care and friendship to those who are socially isolated by mental health. The scheme was set up as an arm of supported accommodation, initially to meet the needs of people discharged from hospital and is part of a range of services provided by Praxis Care Group.
The organisation covers many of the towns and cities in Northern Ireland and has grown steadily over the years. In the hope of encouraging the development of personal interest and social activities for service users within their community, the scheme enables mentally ill people to feel part of the community.
The work of the volunteers has been incredibly successful and there are currently 110 matches with volunteers and partners. Many of the volunteers have received awards for years of service, which has helped boost moral and give them a sense of pride in their work.
Contact : Alyson Dunn
Call: 02890 234 555
Website: www.praxiscaregroup.org.uk
Preston Panthers
Preston Panthers was established due to the lack of sport and recreation provision within Preston City for young people with disabilities. The club provides opportunities for young people such as swimming, athletics, team games, basic play and more recently rock climbing and outdoor pursuits.
The club works with every child who is referred or attends and never excludes children, regardless of their behaviour, which is often linked to their ability.
The biggest success at the club has been the consistent attendance of a core group of volunteers. This has helped provide a solid foundation, based on trust and support between volunteers, young people and their parents.
Recently the club faced closure due to finance. However, through determination, commitment and dedication from a core group of parents the club has not only sustained itself but has grown in numbers.
Contact: Marilyn Gregson
Call: 01772 719025
Mob: 0771 9599537
Preston Panthers (West View Leisure Centre): 01772 796788
Website: www.prestoncitycouncil.co.uk
Riding for the Disabled Association (RDA)
The Riding for the Disabled Associationprovides horse riding and carriage driving opportunities for physically disabled people and those with learning difficulties from Coleraine and the surrounding area.
The group has an arena and stables for nine horses and manages the operation and maintenance of the facilities. The volunteers raise funds, run the facilities and provide leaders and ride walkers for each horse depending on the experience and needs of the rider.
Every month they raise £1000 to cover the cost of keeping the horses and the operation and maintenance of the facilities, giving their time for free to promote the group and its benefits, with all funds being dedicated to providing the service.
RDA was established 30 years ago when its founders identified a need to provide a fun and therapeutic activity for those with disabilities, and their families, in the local community. In the last 12 months, the association has helped over 120 people of all ages, background and religions from the whole community.
The RDA is also expanding and is set to move to a larger, 13.5-acre site with new and better premises, and providing a multi-sports facility in addition to the existing activities. The group faces the challenge of raising the funds for this move, as the project will require around £1million over the next year. The group has already raised £115,000 towards the project over the last two years, which has facilitated the purchase of the new site, and have already secured a grant of £200,000 from Coleraine Borough Council. The Group is currently working with the Sports Lottery Fund & other bodies to attract further major grant funding to complete the project.
David McClarty, a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, said:
“I have tremendous personal knowledge of the group and the huge contribution it makes to the Coleraine District. No deserving person with disabilities is turned away. I have often witnessed the real sense of personal achievement and the development of their personal self esteem after they have been to the RDA.”
Speaking on behalf of the Group, Albert Clyde, Group Secretary, said
“We are highly honoured to receive this Award. It is recognition of the dedication and service of countless volunteers over the past 30 years. Currently, there are around 50 Volunteers who attend the RDA arena each week, and provide an equestrian service which is both recreational and therapeutic to over 100 disabled persons. In addition the Group is in the process on providing a new Centre at Castleroe, which will provide a state of the art Multi-Sports Centre, and referral service for disabled persons throughout the area.”
Contact: Albert Clyde, Hon Secretary
Call: 0287 0320 147
Website: www.rdacauseway.blink2.com
Email: rdacoleraine@hotmail.com
Rochdale Connections Trust
Rochdale Connections Trust supports young people aged 11 – 19 experiencing a range of difficulties including homelessness, family relationship problems, drug or alcohol abuse, criminality and low self-esteem and helps them to overcome their problems and get their lives back on track.
The young people who are helped by the Trust mostly come from the Brimrod and Deeplish, Balderstone, Newbold, Smallbridge & Wardleworth and Central & Falinge areas, which are among the 10% most deprived wards in the country. The young people are referred to the Trust by local agencies including the Youth Service, The Pupil Referral Unit and individual schools. However, increasingly young people are approaching the Trust directly because they are aware from their peers of the work that the Trust does.
When a young person is referred to the Trust, the Senior Project Manager matches him or her with an appropriate volunteer who will become a mentor to that young person for as long as the relationship is beneficial. The mentors then meet with the young person on a regular basis and by providing support, guidance and encouragement gradually gains their trust and confidence. When that stage is reached the young person can then be helped to further develop social and life skills and to undertake appropriate training, return to school or seek employment. The mentor would then typically continue to support the young person to ensure that the motivation and momentum is sustained.
At the same time the mentor and young person will be assisted by the assigned Trust’s Development Worker who will liaise as appropriate with the relevant statutory agencies to ensure the specialist help is available.
The Trust was set up originally by local Youth Court Magistrates who noticed that many of the youngsters appearing before them did not have a school to attend and that this often led to exclusion from society and a complete loss of self-esteem and self-worth. What makes the Trust so exceptional is the training and dedication of so many volunteer mentors who are prepared to commit so freely of their time, effort, knowledge and experience to help change the lives of the large number of young people who are often so far excluded from society that even relevant agencies find it hard to reach them.
Contact: Vivien Carter
Call: 01706 345111
Website: www.r-c-t.co.uk
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