Celebrating volunteering: Time to reflect on Volunteers' Week 2024 and some amazing people

Volunteers’ Week is always the busiest week of the year, but 2024 has been a hive of activity.

Here at CVS Falkirk & District, we were thrilled to distribute the highest number of volunteer certificates yet with over 600 certificates printed for 45 organisations – which only reflect some of the volunteering efforts in Falkirk and district.

With lots of celebrations every day, our team had an amazing time being part of group celebrations from Slamannan Youth Bowling volunteers’ presentations to Volunteer Scotland’s Volunteers’ Week event. Marking the occasion our volunteering team also had the chance to host Volunteer Drop-in and Information Sessions in Bo’ness Library.

Rounding off the week with a bang, we are thrilled to announce the winners of the CVS Falkirk & District Volunteer Awards 2024. Demonstrating the inspirational impact and dedication shown by volunteers across our local areas, our award winners are as follows:

Volunteer of the Year: Alexander McGill with St John Scotland

Young Volunteer of the Year: Samya Gurung with Project Theatre

Lifetime Achievement: Samina Ali with Rainbow Muslim Women’s Group

Organisation of the Year: The Greenhill Historical Society

Innovative Organisation of the Year: 1st Step Development Ventures

Outstanding Achievement in Health and Wellbeing: Rainbow Muslim Women’s Group

Highly Commended for Volunteer of the Year: May Shields with Bonnyfield Local Nature Reserve Group

Congratulations once more. We are truly delighted to recognise the commitment and effort put into our local communities.

A special shout out to all our nominees and those who received a volunteer certificate – it is our greatest honour recognising you, and your inspirational stories and experiences. You all are truly emblematic of the power of volunteering – what you do matters immensely, and we can never thank you enough.

To celebrate this achievement, our CVS Falkirk & District volunteering team were thrilled to be able to present our winners with these awards as part of a celebratory afternoon tea at the Grange Manor Hotel in Grangemouth, where we were able to create that space for those who give their time to help others to sit back and relax.

Thank you to Grange Manor for looking after our winners. To Councillor Cecil Meiklejohn, for presenting the awards and always supporting volunteering. To Keith and Andrew at MinuteMan Falkirk for all their support in the development of our volunteer certificates. To our panel, thank you for saying yes to the very difficult task of choosing our winners. And, most importantly, thank you to all the amazing volunteers in Falkirk & District for all that you do.

And now … here at CVS Falkirk & District, we are looking forward to celebrating volunteering even further at our upcoming exhibition ‘Capturing Volunteer Stories’ to be held at Arnotdale House in September this year. Stay tuned for more coming soon.

Anyone looking for volunteering support, whether celebrating existing volunteers or promoting/creating new opportunities, should contact CVS Falkirk & District by email: [email protected].