Derby Voluntary Sector Awards 2024

Wow, what a night we had at our 2024 Derby Voluntary Sector Awards!

'We laughed, we cried, we were inspired' said one of our guests, and we think this sums the event up beautifully. It was a night that really showcased the best of Derby, bringing together people from across the city and different areas of the sector, from sports, to music, community safety, to foodbanks, all were connected by a passion for making their communities a better place.

To view the full album of photos and videos from the event please click here!

The Derby Voluntary Sector Awards acknowledges and celebrates the important and often unrecognised work that volunteers, community groups and voluntary organisations are doing, working tirelessly in support of our communities in Derby.

The event is held annually, during Volunteers' Week, which is a national celebration of the amazing contribution volunteers make to communities across the UK. Volunteers’ Week celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2024, making this year extra-special.

For 2024, our celebration was bigger, with more awards than ever. In previous years, the event was named the Volunteer Awards, chiefly celebrating individual volunteers. This year we introduced a more diverse range of awards and opened many of the awards up to organisations, teams and projects, as well as individual volunteers, enabling us to celebrate even more unsung champions in the city.

Our CEO Kim Harper said:

"Year on year, working with and hearing about the contributions and commitment of our sector never fails to surprise me. There are so many inspirational people committed to supporting people in their communities, running groups and services, volunteering and giving back.

Our sector and its volunteers, people who care and want to help, have never been needed more. All of our nominees are incredible, so thank you for everything that you do, life would be much harder for many people in our city without you!!"

Guests attending the event on 6 June 2024 at The Italian Mill were met with beautiful harp music from Laura-Rose Gee, collected a goody bag and enjoyed a welcome drink, before the evening kicked off, hosted by Becky and Brett from our Derby Wellbeing team.

A range of special guests presented each winner with their trophy, created by Jelly Baby Creations. Many of our winners gave inspiring, funny and emotional speeches, whilst photographer Shaun Hardwick captured the moment.

Performers from Baby People entertained the guests, including two incredible young artists from the Zee Musiq Academy.

To round off the night, Community Action's Chair, Ray Khumalo congratulated all of the winners and a final suprise came, when long-standing Community Action staff member Chris Nicholas was presented with flowers, as she is retiring this year.

It was such a lovely evening and a real joy to hear about and celebrate so many fantastic and inspirational people and organisations working and volunteering tirelessly in Derby's amazing voluntary sector. We hope you all enjoyed the event as much as we did!

Huge thanks to our event partners Derby Homes, and also to 6Pence Designs who did a fabulous job with our programme.

The full list of 2024 winners is as follows:

Arts, Culture and Heritage Award - Baby People
Cindy Carter-Foster Community Champion Award - Dawn Gee
Community Leader Award - Terry Willis
Crisis Support Award - Derby City Mission
Cultural Champion Award - Sisters Talk, M-Prez Enterprise Ltd
Empowering Women Award - Liz Le Drew
Good Neighbour Award - Shiraza Kauser
Green Ambassador Award - The Friends of Sinfin Moor Park Local Nature Reserve and Colin Attenborough
Health and Wellbeing Award - Love4Life
LGBT+ Ambassador Award - Derbyshire LGBT+
Lifetime Achievement Award - Martin Shaw
New Arrivals Ambassador Award - Yosief Afewerki
Overcoming Barriers Award - Helen Marcer
Sporting Award (joint award) - Graham Owen and Tahira Khan
Youth Award - Age 5-11 - Coral Butler
Youth Award - Age 12-17 - Talha Imran
Youth Award - Age 18-24 - Rosie Wills
Youth Work Award - Julia Hodder

You can also read more about the winners in the event programme, which can be downloaded below:

Derby Voluntary Sector Awards 2024 Programme (2,601.77 KB)

We had an overwhelming response to the nominations process this year, with 250 entries, and the judging process was incredibly difficult. Although not everyone can win, all of our nominees are incredible and we wanted to say thank you for all that they do. We created a video of photos and quotes from many of the nominations we received to be played at the awards event and you can watch it here!

You can see some photos of the night below. To view the full album of photos and videos from the event please click here!