Staplehurst Merit Awards

The Parish Council was delighted to present the annual Merit Awards at its social ‘Thank You’ gathering for village volunteers. A big thank you to Balfour Winery who kindly donated the refreshments and also lent us the glasses. We hope that all our volunteers had a pleasant evening, we really appreciate all the hard work that you do for the village. Staplehurst is very lucky to have so many lovely volunteers, thank you all.

The Parish Council was delighted to present Bob Ham with the annual Merit Award.

Bob deserves recognition for his many years of voluntary service to the community of Staplehurst. He has been a member of the Carnival and Fete Committee (and the Staplehurst Community Events Group) for many years, including being Chairman. This was a huge responsibility because of the many public events this group organised. These include; The Annual Carnival, 5 and 10K fun runs, Christmas Fayre, French Market, Parties in the Park Celebrating Royal Events (especially the 4 days for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee) and Santa’s Sleigh (along with the Paddock Wood and District Lions)

The committee have used their profits to award donations to many village groups. They also prepared the Carnival programme which was delivered to every household, which included very interesting snippets of history, as well as advertising the timetable of events on the field.

Bob also works with the Lions to help many individuals in Staplehurst.

In addition, Bob has worked with the Parish Council for many years delivering the Updates and Annual Reports.

Bob is a wonderful family man and he keeps a caring eye on his neighbours and friends. He has now retired to spend more time with his family. Staplehurst has been enriched by Bob’s amazing contributions.

This year’s junior award was presented to Savannah Rhodes who has become an advocate of the Staplehurst Emergency Help Team (SEHT). Having been the first in the village to obtain her Duke of Cornwall (DoC) Home Award, Savannah has continued to support the SEHT and helped at two recent water stations to assist with distribution. She has also attended a fund raiser at Surrenden Field for the SEHT.

A frequent assistant to the artisan market on the SEHT stall in her personalised hi vis jacket, Savannah talks easily to visitors and helps DoC participants.

In October, the Kent Resilience Forum came to make a video of Savannah talking about her DoC Award and she was absolutely amazing; polite, chatty and professional.

Savannah is a true asset to SEHT and has shown commitment and assistance where possible. She has designed posters, sorted suitcases, checked off the inventory and generally made herself part of the team.

The Merit Awards have previously been sponsored by a local business in the last few last years by JBH Refurbishments for which the Parish Council is very grateful. This year the awards were kindly sponsored by three of our own Parish Councillors to whom we are most appreciative.