The Cabinet Office and Buckingham Palace have today announced the sixty winners of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Volunteering Award 2012.
The Award recognises voluntary groups which have made a contribution throughout Her Majesty’s sixty-year reign, alongside newer organisations that engaged volunteers specifically to support the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Among those honoured are the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), St John Ambulance, Victim Support, Marie Curie Cancer Care and Girlguiding UK.
The Olympics-related groups which are recognised range from Locog Games Makers, which recruited 70,000 volunteers who wore their distinctive purple and red uniforms, to the 575-strong Coventry Ambassadors, who welcomed visitors to their city during the Games. Other recipients are contributors to the Olympic legacy.
Nick Hurd, minister for civil society, called the list of recipients of the Award "a who’s who of some of our most important charities and voluntary organisations".
“It is a testament to the enduring strength and immeasurable contribution of volunteers over the past 60 years,” he said.
The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Volunteering Award 2012 was announced in February 2012 to commemorate Her Majesty’s sixty-year reign by recognising voluntary groups that operate across the UK or in the one of the four home nations.
It is a special, one-off, category of the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service (QAVS), which was established in 2002 as part of the UK honours system to recognise the work of grassroots organisations at a local level, receiving a certificate signed by the Queen and a domed glass crystal.
The winners
The recipients are split into three categories.
National organisations:
- Action on Hearing Loss
- Age UK
- Association of Young People with ME
- Black Leadership Initiative
- Body and Soul
- British Red Cross – London
- British Youth Council
- Calibre Audio Library
- Chest, Heart and Stroke (Scotland)
- Children's Hospice Association Scotland
- Coastguard Rescue Service
- Community Money Advice
- Contact the Elderly
- Family Lives
- Girlguiding UK
- Guide Dogs for the Blind
- Home-Start UK
- Hope UK
- Junior Chamber International UK
- Make a Wish Foundation UK
- Marie Curie Cancer Care
- Maritime Volunteer Services
- Meningitis Trust
- Methodist Homes
- MindWise
- Missing People
- National Prevention of Cruelty to Children
- Neighbourhood and Home Watch Network
- People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals
- Place2Be
- RNIB
- RNLI
- Sea Cadets
- SNAP Cymru
- St John Ambulance
- Sue Ryder
- Sustrans Volunteer Programme
- The Scout Association
- The Shannon Trust
- Victim Support
- Vinspired
- Woodland Trust
- Young Enterprise
- YouthNet
Olympic and Paralympic voulnteering projects:
- Coventry Ambassadors
- Essex Ambassadors Sports Delivery & London 2012 Legacy Essex County Council
- Gamesmaker Volunteers – LOCOG
- Glasgow Life - Ambassador Programme
- Newham's Volunteers
- Team London Ambassadors
- The Balloons Project
- The Mayor’s Community Champions: Tower Hamlets
- Volunteer NOW
Sport and dance organisations:
- Big Dance 2012 volunteers
- British Cycling
- Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust
- England Hockey Board
- The England and Wales Cricket Board
- StreetGames UK
- Volleyball England
