At a special celebration on Friday 2nd July 2010 Windmill Hill Community Forum was presented with the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service by David Briggs the Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire.
Also present were the Mayor of Halton Marie Wright, the Mayoress Sheila Walsh, and the newly elected MP for Weaver Vale, Graham Evans. Other special guests included representatives from some of the foundations, trusts and local organisations who helped to fund the Forum over the past year. A further 85 students and their families from the Forum’s very successful Telematics Centre made it a very popular event.
After the presentation of the award, which was made to Mike Burrows the Chairman of Windmill Hill Community Forum, David Briggs spoke to the assembled guests about his role as Lord Lieutenant, explaining that he was the Queen’s representative in Cheshire. He also further enlightened the assembled guests about the value of the Queen’s Award, which is a Volunteer Organisation’s equivalent of an MBE and the highest honour that a voluntary sector organisation can receive. He outlined the rigorous selection process required, initially by the County and finally by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office in London, before saying that “the Forum’s volunteers should be justifiably proud of their achievement because they were one of just two successful applicants from Cheshire and one of 103 successful applicants from across the whole country in 2010”.
In reply Mike Burrows thanked the Lord Lieutenant for presenting the award and the Mayor Marie Wright, the Mayoress Sheila Walsh, and Graham Evans MP for accepting the Forum’s invitation to attend. He then introduced the Forum’s Volunteers who had made the award possible, namely himself as Trustee, Chairman and Treasurer, Trustee and Secretary Tracey Crutchley, Trustee Cllr Mike Shepherd, Trustee David Brandwood, and Trustee and Transport Co-ordinator Gordon Jenions, who sadly passed away two weeks ago and will be sorely missed by all who knew him.
Then new volunteer Rodney Rowe was formally welcomed to the Forum, and Nick Walton, the Telematics Centre’s Project Manger, was thanked for all his hard work and praised for his ability to teach at a level which students could easily understand.
Mike went on to thank the charity foundations and trusts who had provided funding over the past year, and was pleased to welcome Nicky Steele of the Community Foundation for Merseyside, Sophia Manners-Price and Joe Ainsworth of the RockSavage Power Company, and Kathryn Muscroft of the Liverpool Housing Trust, whilst representatives of the Lloyds TSB Foundation for England & Wales and the Santander Foundation had sent their apologies.
Mike’s final comment was “I’d like to reserve a very special thank you for Beth Edwards who was responsible for nominating the Forum for the Queen’s Award and making this whole chain of events possible”.
After the speeches and photographs the VIPs circulated amongst the rest of the assembled guests and joined in the party atmosphere. At the end of the evening everyone expressed their pride that the Forum had won this prestigious award, and also expressed their thanks and appreciation that David Briggs the Lord Lieutenant, Marie Wright the Mayor, Sheila Walsh the Mayoress and Graham Evans our local MP had made a special evening even more special by mingling and talking with everyone present.
Students and guests enjoy the celebration evening held at Windmill Hill PlayCentre on Friday 2 July 2010.
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