Recognising Volunteers
Walter Rader OBE, the Northern Ireland Representative of The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service (QAVS) & Eric Rainey CVO MBE DL one of the local Award Assessors, addressed the Club on the Award which is now 15 years in existence - having been introduced in 2002 to celebrate the Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Part of the UK Honours System, it is the highest form of civic recognition which can be granted to an organisation in acknowledgement of the work of volunteers and acknowledges in a wonderful way the dedication and significant (frequently unknown) work undertaken by volunteers at local community level.
They pointed out there are over 17,000 Voluntary and Community organisations across NI and 300,000 people volunteer each year – which would cost £1 billion at the living wage. Volunteers dedication, commitment, time, skills and energy are the life blood of community and the QAVS is the highest civic recognition, across the UK, which can be granted to an organisation in acknowledgement of the work of volunteers at local level. This year there were 515 UK nominations - 34 from NI of whom 18 received Awards with 5 based in Belfast. In fact over the years there have been 92 NI Awards, 18 in Belfast.
They advised that they are always on the look out for organisations which merit nomination. An organisation can be nominated if its work is volunteer led and comes under the broad Award themes of: Youth Groups / Play Schemes; Environmental & Regenerational; Educational; Health; Recreation - Sports / Arts / Heritage; Self-help / Support Groups; Social Centre / Community; Social preventative schemes; Emergency response; Digital; Media.
An organisation can nominated, through the online process here by an independent Nominator; it will then receive a Local Assessment visit by the Lieutenancy and a report is written along with a Citation from the Lord Lieutenant; the UK Award Committee assesses all nominations using the Award themes and recommends those organisations that have attained the highest standard to HM The Queen to be granted the Award; the Awardee List is announced yearly on 02 June; the Lord Lieutenant making the presentation to the organisation, on behalf of Her Majesty, at Local Award Presentation Ceremonies.