Volunteers are up for team award

Landywood District Voluntary Help Centre, Great Wyrley, run by volunteers, has been nominated for the team award for services provided to the community in awards organised by South Staffordshire Primary Care Trust.

Launched in 1976, the centre has a volunteer register of about 70 people. They work with 80 to100 people a week, providing transport to appointments and organising social events.

Chris Myatt, centre chairman and secretary for the centre, said: "We provide a diverse range of services to people in the area from driving them to hospital or doctor's appointments to picking up their shopping and organising events. We have three vehicles that are used on a daily basis and every week we have drop-in coffee mornings, bingo, lunch clubs and also hold a one-to-one club evening for local special needs residents"

The centre receives several minimal grants on an annual basis but is mostly self-funded, a lot of which comes from their charity shop.

"We all work hard to ensure that we can keep the service going by raising funds. Finding out that we had been put forward for the award was great, we were all extremely pleased and it's a real pat on the back for all of the volunteers that work here.

"The greatest part of what we do is knowing that you have helped someone and made their quality of life better and this award nomination is just the icing on the cake," added Chris.

South Staffordshire PCT launched the awards in April and received nearly 100 nominations from patients and the public in South Staffordshire who had identified quality of care and sheer excellence of service and wanted to recognise this by nominating staff, carers and members of the public who have contributed to health and social care locally.

A panel of judges consisting of 5 independent representatives had the difficult job of selecting the shortlist within the six categories which will now go forward to the awards ceremony in September.