Happy New Year folks – and wow, what a year my charity (The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety) and our volunteers have just had!

Jointly, we reached the final of eleven awards including seven national awards – and we won four of them;

In February 2019, we reached the final of the North Ayrshire Partnership Staff Awards 2018 in the same two categories as we did in 2018 – “Innovative Team” (a creative team that implements innovative ideas) and “Partnership Champions” (a great team with great results). These awards are highly sought after within the Health & Social Care sector and although we did not win our categories, our registered blind Level 2 Instructor, Yvette Robertson, won the “No.1 Volunteer Award”.

Also in February 2019, we won the “Empowerment Champions” award at The Scottish Diversity Awards 2019 in Glasgow. This award recognized the confidence boosting and  empowering outcomes of our Personal Safety courses for all groups targeted by Hate Crime.

Yvette Robertson was once again recognised – this time nationally – as she reached the final of the No.1 Amazing Women Awards in Glasgow in March 2019. She beat thousands of nominees to reach the final four in the category of “Amazing Charitable Contribution Award” and although she did not win, we are all extremely proud of her.

In June 2019, we went to The Tower of London and won the “Disability” category at the Charity Awards 2019, the longest-running and most prestigious UK awards scheme for the charity sector. In fact, it was announced at these awards that we “had won more national awards in the one year (four in 2018-19) than any other UK charity” – not bad for a wee Ardrossan based third sector organisation with only ten volunteers.

 

From June to October 2019, we first of all beat 28,451 nominations from across the UK to reach the Liverpool final of the National Diversity Awards 2019 in the category of “Community Organisation Award”; we then reached the final of The Ayrshire Community Trust’s Volunteers’ Awards under the category of “Volunteer Team of the Year”; we reached the Scottish Parliament final of the Self Management Awards 2019 under the category of “Project of the Year Award” for our newly developed Personal Safety course for Sensory Impaired People; and then we beat off thousands to reach the Glasgow final of the Herald & GenAnalytics Diversity Awards 2019 in the category of “Design for Diversity Award”, again for our course for people who are Sensory Impaired. Unfortunately, we did not win any of these awards, but it’s still amazing to reach the national finals of Scottish and UK awards.

To top it all off, just a few weeks ago, at the end of November 2019, we won the inaugural RNIB See Differently Awards 2019 in the category of “Team of the Year” at their London Bridge final (the day before the terrorist attack). This national award “recognises a team that has demonstrated excellent teamwork, leadership and impact to make a significant contribution to improving the lives of people who are blind or partially sighted” so we were really honoured to win this title.

What a fabulous year we’ve had – and long may it continue. In fact, it already is continuing because later this month we are in yet another national final – this time for the National Centre for Diversity Grand Awards 2020 in two categories – “Most Innovative EDI Initiative of the Year” and “Most Improved Organisation of the Year”. Keep your fingers crossed.

From ALL at The Scottish Centre for Personal Safety, we hope you have a very Happy New Year – goodbye for now.