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This year’s Fife Volunteer of the Year Awards was held at the Beveridge Park Hotel, Kirkcaldy on 25th October. The event was once again sponsored by BSkyB and organised by Volunteer Centre Fife as part of the national celebrations for Make a Difference Day.

As well as receiving certificates and awards fun was had by all while playing Family Fortunes. Every table became a famous family – The Skywalkers, The Simpsons, The Ewings, The Duckworths, The Mitchells, The Flintstones, The Windsors, The Trotters, The Royles, The Addams and the Weasleys. Quiz Master, Paul Gardner, kept everyone very entertained throughout the night.

8 families competed to take part in the semi finals and final. The final was hotly contested between The Ewings and The Mitchells (neither family to be messed with). With the very apt question – Name a Quick Way to Get Rich – The Ewings won the final of Family Fortunes.

We were delighted to have Gerard McEneany, Fife Children’s Panel and Marie Hetherington, BSkyB as guest speakers.

Gerard works full time for Apex Scotland, a leading voluntary agency specialising in working with ex-offenders. He’s also been a member of Fife Children’s Panel since 1994, and becoming Chairman of Fife in 2003. In June 2007 Gerard was elected as the national chair of the children’s panel with responsibility for 2800 volunteer panel members across Scotland. He spoke about the work of the Children’s Panel and how they value and support their volunteers. It was very gratifying to hear that the Fife Children’s Panel never struggles for volunteers.

Marie Hetherington, previous winner of the BSkyB Employer Supported Volunteer of the Year, spoke about how volunteering is very much part of the ethos at BSkyB and the support staff receive to be able to volunteer. As chair of BSkyB’s Make a Difference Panel and co-chair of Make a Difference Fundraising Panel Marie is heavily involved in volunteering at BSkyB. Through the team challenges Marie herself has built up quite a range of skills including being a tour guide, painter / decorator, interior designer and landscape gardener. If any organisation would like to challenge Marie and the BSkyB staff to a new challenge please contact Volunteer Centre Fife.

Suzanne Shaw is a 20 year old singer / songwriter from North-East Fife. She currently hosts live music events in a coffee house in St Andrews as well as regular shows in and around Anstruther and in the Tayside Area. She is also involved with Madras College Singing Programme which encourages pupils to embrace music in a modern way. At the end of the year she is due to record her first album before travelling around Europe and the United States.

We were delighted to have such a large number of nominees from across Fife. All nominees received certificates and the winners of each category were announced.

Steven Coogans, father of three young children, has over the last four years helped learners across Northeast Fife gain confidence in their IT skills as part of the IT Buddy volunteering scheme. He started off having little IT knowledge and was first introduced to computers as part of a Focus Education Project group from a local hospital where he was being treated. This encouraged him to return to learning full time and he enrolled at Elmwood College originally to do a Green Keeping course but in 2003 he changed direction to pursue his interests in computing. Despite a hectic family and studying full time he decided to volunteer for the IT buddy volunteering scheme to help others within the college. This progressed to helping community based learners in Cupar Library and St Andrews Learning Centre.

Steven has made such good progress with his volunteering that he’s now in demand to mentor new volunteers. John Jones, nominator, says “Steven is an exceptional person who despite many personal hurdles has shown a sustained and enthusiastic commitment to helping others in his community improve their skills and confidence. He is friendly and approachable and continues to contribute to the improvement of the volunteering scheme through feedback and suggestions.”

Leanne, pictured with nominator Police Sergeant Graham McCallum, couldn’t attend on the night.

Leanne is a full time member of staff working at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Vane Farm. At the same time as this, she has been a Special Constable within Fife Constabulary for the past 32 months. During this period she has been volunteering a considerable amount of her time and effort. She has clocked up more than 2000 hours of volunteering (this equates to 500 duty tours or 250 days of full time operational policing).

Over the past 12 months she has attended for duty in a variety of capacities ranging from:

Assisting with major police investigations including a murder enquiry
Lending support to family and relatives when faced with bereavement
Dealing with confrontational youth disorder issues in towns and villages throughout Fife
Working in partnership with other forces throughout the UK as part of G8 police operations
Supporting the teaching and training of other Special Constables and sharing her own knowledge and expertise.

Kingdom Credit Union is the newest credit union in Fife having been in operation for only 3 years. They are now however the largest credit union in Fife with just over 900 members and operate from 12 collection points throughout central Fife. This membership is due to the fact that the volunteers have gone around most streets in their membership area promoting the credit union and posting flyers and leaflets, also becoming involved with local groups giving talks on the work they do.

They have gone further than most other credit unions by assisting people who have contacted the credit union for a loan to apply for charity grants where possible. During the collapse of Farepak, Kingdom Credit Union came to the rescue of over 40 local people and gave low cost loans (without the usual savings required) of around £15,000.

Kingdom Credit Union have also introduced introductory loans again which do not require the member to have saved first in an effort to get people away from the crippling rates of interest charged by doorstep lenders. In addition, they have also set up schools savings clubs where as well as encouraging savings, talks are given on money matters and debt avoidance.

Charlie has lived alone for many years. However, instead of becoming house-bound and sedentary he chose to volunteer. Charlie at the age of almost 70 has been regularly attending the Green Gym twice a week for some 5 years. His contribution during this time has been immense. He also regularly leads walks for “Bums off Seats”.

Colin Murray, nominator says, “Charlie is a genuine unsung hero and fully deserves to receive the recognition he richly deserves. If I had my way Charlie would win every year. His warmth and friendliness are just two of his many great qualities. He is loved by all that know him both at the Green Gym and in the community of Lochgelly where he lives. Charlie is a modest man who doesn’t crave recognition”.

Linda is actively involved in volunteering through BSkyB. Over the course of this year alone she organised a two day team challenge at Seal House in Dunfermline who work with socially excluded young people. She galvanised a team to spend their week-end decorating the house prior to which she secured donations and fundraised to buy materials to make this possible. During Volunteers’ Week 2007 Linda volunteered at Volunteer Centre Fife’s 24 hour knitathon. As an experienced knitter not only did she knit a lot of items she also taught other people to knit so all could take part. Since then Linda has set up knitting groups in Kelty and Kirkcaldy for people to come together to knit for charities both here and abroad.

Saskia Nelson, nominator says, “This year Linda has really taken her volunteering to a new level. Her passion for the community is infectious and she has opened up the world of volunteering to lots of new people who may otherwise not have got involved. I also think her approach is very innovative and very Sky! She is the first Sky volunteer to set up her own volunteering blog and I hope she becomes the first of many. Thanks for all your support this year Linda, you really deserve it."

David is 84 years old and is a very active member of the community; volunteering at the local community centre, The Rio Centre and Granary Lane Sheltered Housing. Dave is involved with a wide variety of volunteering within these two organisations. He’s involved with fundraising through jumble sales, coffee mornings, craft fairs etc. He shops for the clients at the sheltered housing, often in Dundee as it’s cheaper and generally helps out there. At the youth clubs he also helps at the discos and judging fancy dress competitions so is involved with all ages in the community.

There is nothing that Dave won’t tackle even though last year he was very ill he bounced back and is now working harder than ever for everyone in the community. Betty Martin, nominator, says “I sometimes forget Dave’s age as he has such a young outlook on life which refreshes everyone”.

We are delighted to announce that this year’s overall winner is Steven Coogans!

Claire Baker MSP attended the awards night having nominated Citizens and Rights Fife Volunteers for the team award. She was very impressed by the work of the volunteers from across Fife and we were delighted to hear that she took this information back to the parliament and put down the below motion.

S3M-764 Claire Baker (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab) : Fife Volunteer of the Year Awards— That the Parliament congratulates Steven Coogans from Elmwood College for winning the Fife Volunteer of the Year award; further congratulates Steven for winning student volunteer of the year, Leanne Mercer from Fife Special Constabulary for winning young volunteer of the year, Charlie Payne from BTCV Scotland for winning the open category, David Brown from the Rio Centre for winning mature volunteer of the year, Kingdom Credit Union for winning volunteer team of the year and Linda Jaap for winning the BSkyB volunteer of the year award; congratulates Volunteer Centre Fife for running the awards and holding a very successful award ceremony; believes that volunteers provide a fantastic contribution to the quality of life of people across Scotland, and calls on the Scottish Government to invest resources in supporting volunteers and other forms of community participation.

We’d like to say a big thank you to our sponsors, BSkyB, without whom this night would not have been possible.

Thanks to Suzanne Shaw for entertaining us with her music and for loaning us her PA equipment for the night.

Finally, thanks to all the volunteers and their nominees
without whom we would have no
reason to celebrate!

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