At last, the formal announcement has been made – SADTN has been granted the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service (QAVS).  This is a fantastic recognition of the efforts of all SADTN volunteers over the past 45 years, especially those who started the whole thing off in 1974 – Ray and Meg Bousfield, sadly no longer with us but never forgotten (see our website).

Here is the official explanation: ‘The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service is the highest award given to local volunteer groups across the UK to recognize outstanding work done in their own communities.  It was created in 2002 to celebrate the anniversary of The Queen’s coronation.  It is the MBE for volunteer groups.’ 

Obviously, this is a huge honour (we are not the first TN to receive the award, but I doubt any other TN has received the (national) QAVS and the (local) Mayor’s Special Recognition Award in the same year!).  The very small number of us (just the three Trustees) who have known of this award for the past month or so have found it extremely difficult to keep our mouths closed (especially at the recent AGM) but the announcement was embargoed until 2nd June.

If you wish to find out more about the QAVS,  click on  ‘Listen Online’ in the menu at the top of this page,  then scroll down till you reach ‘Community Matters’ near the bottom. Click on that title and you will find an interview about the QAVS as the first item.  This interview was recently played to our listeners – so they will all know what it means when we say “we got it!”

Yet more information about QAVS can be found at their website, https://www.gov.uk/queens-award-for-voluntary-service