Steemit writeoff #1 - Non-Fiction - National Award Winning Volunteer

This is my #steemitwriteoff entry @truthmomma and @tralawar I hope I'm not too late :)

Photograph by Will Bremridge

It was a beautiful morning, the Sun had just risen past the tip of the stone Church which majestically threw it's shadow over our 11th Century monks Priory. This part of Great Yarmouth was the most beautiful in the morning. Even more stunning than dusk over the nearby docks, which could challenge even the infamous Norfolk Broads in picturesqueness.

It wasn't a Priory anymore of course. No, no monks lived here now. In fact, no-one lived here at all. It was now "The Priory Centre" and had been turned into a Charity for the people of Great Yarmouth. The only people that worked the halls here were the staff, and they were no strangers to life's absurdities.

We helped people that struggled.

That's all. No prior requisites, just that life is hard and something needed to change.

We were there to help.

We were a diverse team. I liked the name 'walking miracles'. Each of us had faced obscene odds, where people, no, everyone had given up on us and left us to.. well.. die. But we had all stared the Devil himself in the face and won the battle; we came out of the tunnel kicking and screaming and had the scars to prove it.

Those scars, those are what made us who we were.

Anyway, it was like any other beautiful day and I found myself making haste to my office. It was a cold one, and as people know, early spring isn't the most Australian weather in the UK.

I sat at my PC and checked my emails. It was the first thing I did every day. As a manager people tend to think we're busy doing not much, but in essence, I was an expert communicator. I made things happen. And when they travelled south, I became a diplomat.

Emails were important because it had me on top of who wanted what and why.

It's also a pain sometimes, because as a person with some clout in an organisation people tend to ask for favours without much in return. And I get lots of those emails. Especially from other charities.

It was by pure accident that I opened up Age UK's email. I didn't normally open up emails like such. It was irrelevant to what I was doing at the time.

They were looking for someone to win Age UK's volunteer of the year award. The criteria is that entrants must be over 50 and contribute a fair amount to their local community. Luckily, I immediately thought of the person that "should win that"

So I talked to him. He was my volunteer. I had sourced him from the start. He came to us looking for help and I immediately saw that glint in his eye. I always knew the people that I wanted. And I took him on after working with him for a while. When he was ready. I knew he would be great.

He was invaluable from the start. Helping others, going beyond his duty to help people and a range of other things that I never asked him to do, but he did anyway. And boy were they helpful.

He definitely deserved to win that award. His personal journey was nothing short of amazing.

I helped him write up and send off his case to Age UK.

You know what? He won it. 

Not only did he win a luxury hotel break for two in London, but he also attended the award ceremony that Sunday of his London stay. National recognition. Pictures and quotes from him in the paper and on the internet. He won a stack load of prizes too. When he came back I had to set up his new laptop for him. And I was SO proud of him. Because it wasn't as if he had the money to buy his own.

AND he met June Whitfield. That was the highlight for him, he told me. She was quite a significant lady in his younger years. 

She presented him with the award

I guess in comparison that would be like me meeting Kylie Minogue!

He never thanked me. Not even nearly two years later. But that didn't matter. The smile on his face, meeting his lady star, and winning an award that he deserved was enough for me. I didn't need thanks.

The feeling inside it gave me was thanks enough.