the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service
SERV Suffolk & Cambridgeshire
The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service aims to recognise outstanding work by volunteer groups to benefit their local communities and in 2019, we were over the moon to receive the prestigious award. SERV Suffolk & Cambridgeshire were nominated and received the award for “Providing free transport of essential blood products, samples and donated breast milk to hospitals and air ambulances.”
As nominees, it was a long, varied application process in which Her Majesty The Queen was very much involved. We received an email from the QAVS team which said ‘The work your group does for the community was very much admired by the Independent Assessment Committee, chaired by Sir Martyn Lewis CBE, and I am delighted to inform you that your group has been selected as a recipient for The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service (QAVS) 2019. This represents a tremendous achievement for your organisation and we hope that everyone involved, and particularly your volunteers, will feel immensely proud of it.’
We were asked to nominate a representative from our group to attend a prestigious garden party at Buckingham Palace. As a long standing volunteer and for all of the hard work liaising with our local hospitals as ‘the face’ of SERV Suffolk & Cambridgeshire, Mick Thurman was unanimously selected by the Committee to attend this memorable day.
In November 2019, at the magnificent venue of Westminster College in Cambridge, The Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire, Mrs Julie Spence, presented the award and certificate signed by Her Majesty the Queen, to the SERV Suffolk & Cambridgeshire volunteers and their honoured guests who have supported the charity.
After receiving the award, Chairman, Cindy Dickerson said, “Each and every one of our volunteers gives their time willingly and without question and this prestigious award is a testament to them and their professionalism. It has given us great pleasure to be nominated by those we support and to hear about how they really appreciate the work we do. We feel both humble and so, so proud to have been chosen.”
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