Tag: Volunteer of the Year

Richard Weekes: Volunteer of the Year

Good luck today to the ‘crew’ on board Cambria for the last weekend of the St Kat’s Classic Boat Festival. If the weather here is anything to go by (blue skies, bright sunshine) then they may have a very busy time on their hands and could top the thousand visitors mark. That’ll be all staffed by unpaid volunteers which brings me neatly round to today’s subject, this year’s Volunteer of the Year, Richard Weekes.

Richard Weekes

Richard Weekes is presented with his Volunteer of the Year trophy by Patron David Suchet (l) accompanied by Skipper, Ian Ruffles (r).

Richard  has been with us for years. Regular readers will remember the rebuild phase where I called him “My Oppo, Richard”. We were partnered up together on the volunteer rota for the open weekends where we showed the public around the Visitor Centre and the viewing gallery every 6th weekend. I ‘knew’ there were a dozen or so of us but during that phase, Richard was the only one I ever saw, so if I needed a ‘person’ to give a sense of scale to a photograph, or hands holding a paint brush for a blog picture, Richard always had to stand in, so that his daughter even joked that I was Richard’s ‘personal photographer’

 

Richard then piled in during the painting phase, joining the gang of us each weekend but then also coming down during the week too, to quietly slap a coat of black on a leeboard, or some gloss green on a winch in the old buildings. He has basically carried on ever since when he has been able to get access to the boat. You know what they say about these Navy types – if it moves, salute it; if it doesn’t move paint it!

 

Richard has his own Cambria and Bob Roberts connection which, if memory serves, had Richard on one of the Navy ships accompanying the likes of Bob Roberts on Cambria to Dunkirk for one of the anniversary (25th?) gatherings of Little Ships. When Bob and his Mate were to be invited aboard the Navy ship for a drop or two of rum, it was Richard himself detailed to go fetch Bob and bring him aboard, and then later to assist the rather more ‘tired and emotional’ Barge Master back to his barge.

 

Well, this year the Cambria Trust has decided to acknowledge Richard’s unstinting hard work as a volunteer, by presenting him with a very nice trophy. The presentation was performed on board at St Kat’s yesterday afternoon by our esteemed Patron, David Suchet himself, in company of the current Skipper, Ian Ruffles. Well done, Richard. You earned it. We are all very proud of you.

Volunteers of the Year!

Wow! A breathless e-mail from the painting volunteer teenage sisters, Bee and Hannah Pihama! Hannah writes,

“Hi Matt

We have just got back from London for the (National Historic Ships, Volunteer of the Year) Awards ceremony which we won!  We had a simply amazing day and really enjoyed meeting Princess Anne, thanks you so much for nominating us.  We got a framed certificate and a cheque for £250 each.  Beth said she will write something for the blog asap.  The National Historic Ships said the press release should be done by tomorrow.
Hannah
xx”
HMS Belfast

HMS Belfast; picture from the Belfast website.

We (the ‘grown-up’ Volunteers) had seen the advert for this and, after secret discussions, had sneakily applied on behalf of Bee and Hannah, filling out the form and describing in the most favourable way we could, their brilliant contribution to the Cambria from slapping on anti foul and paint to the underside and wales in the biting Nor’easters of that bitter winter, to hands-and-knees shovelling out old sawdust from the limbers through to the more pleasant tasks like cooking delicious chocolate cakes for the Volunteer session tea breaks. We told how they delighted us by joining in fully with our little community, swapping banter with the older Volunteers and getting fully involved in the conversations and jokery. They really were a joy to work with and we know they loved it too.

We sent off the forms to National Historic Ships and quickly heard back that the girls had been invited to attend the Awards Ceremony aboard HMS Belfast in the company of HRH Princess Anne but we did not know whether they’d actually won anything. We selected their Dad, Owen Pihama as the ‘Responsible Adult’ from the Trust to accompany them and the three of them had to submit their particulars for security checks and so on.
I will wait for Bee’s ‘Roving Report’ for the rest of this story.
Well done Girls (and Dad).
You earned it!

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