Volunteer conference

The annual Diabetes UK London volunteer conference was held at 151 Bishopsgate EC1 on Saturday 12th March. Our chairman Bill Foulkes and Secretary Paul Gillingham attended to represent the group. It was an enjoyable day with plenty going on by way of speeches, presentations and workshop. Plenty of refreshments and a good buffet lunch were also laid on. The highlight of the event was the London Inspire Awards presentations. These were given to individual volunteers and groups for their work throughout the year. Our group was nominated for the Group of the year but missed out on winning as that was awarded to the Barnet group. However Paul our group Secretary was nominated for 2 awards and managed to win the Campaigning ànd Awareness Award. There are 6 awards in total the last one being The Sue Braeger Award for the overall volunteer of the year. Paul also won this award and felt very humbled by winning it. Before her sad death 4 years ago Sue and her husband Joe were instrumental in improving diabetes services in Havering.Both of them were good friends of our group and Joe to this day still takes an active interest in it as well as running the Havering Family Group.