Alright, Jack!
We enjoyed a wonderful evening last Friday as we celebrated the achievements of a group of our young people at our annual Jack Petchey Awards.
It was a case of 'standing-room only' as friends and family members gathered together to acknowledge another terrific year for Sycamore Trust UK and some the incredible individual progress and personal achievements of our young people.
Each year, thanks to the support of the Jack Petchey Foundation, which was set up over 20 years ago to inspire and motivate young people, we've given awards to a group of young people that we have supported throughout the year. There's no specific criteria to receiving a JPF award, as long as you've taken part on our groups and activities with a positive attitude, then you're in with a chance.
Each of our youth projects and clubs were represented and there were also three awards that focused specifically in our terrific week at Lambourne End in August. And we finished the evening with a couple of special Sycamore Trust awards of our own!
Among our winners were some of the young people who have made important and positive contributions to our groups and activities over the last year, and in a couple of cases, over several years.
Faye
This year, after our fantastic week at Lambourne, three young people stood out for their willingness to show courage and challenge themselves. On her first day, Faye was very nervous, but overcame her initial concerns to take part in everything we asked of her with great enthusiasm. Liam is an old hand at this stuff, having been on several outdoor weeks with us in the past and as a boy scout, Edward had seen it all before, but helped some of the other young people along and showed great leadership skills.
Liam
Edward
Riley also enjoyed his days at Lambourne and his cheerful disposition and his boundless enthusiasm made him a pleasure to be around. His family were present to see him receive his award and very proud of him they were too! Lavinia won her award for her relentlessly positive contribution to the Romford girls group, although we also know how much she enjoyed her week with us in the sun in August.
Riley and his family
From the Bravo group, Dylan won a long overdue award. He joined the group during the 2020 lockdown, which was tricky in itself, as the initial group meetings were held over Zoom, but once we got back to our regular group activities, he proved to be an invaluable and popular member of the group. In Joseph we have something of an artist. He took part in our work ready project last year and also contributed an image that we used to promote our golf day earlier this year. And he also pitched in to help us paint the Romford wall over the summer.
Joseph
Dylan
Edwin and Ayomide also picked up Jack Petchey awards from Sycamore Trust CEO Chris Gillbanks. The JPF award consists of a medal, badge and certificate and £250 to be spent on a group activity next year for all the group members.
Finally, for the first time, we had two Sycamore Trust awards to hand out. For some years, we've been disappointed not to be able to hand out awards to some of our young people, who didn't qualify for a number of reasons, so we decided to create a couple of awards of our own. And we were delighted to honour the achievements of two young women who have been making positive and consistent contributions for some years now. Our first ever 'Shining Star' award went to budding footballer Jaime, who has been involved with us for a couple of years now, taking part at girls group and at Stubbers last year and there was long overdue recognition for another young lady who has undergone something of a transformation since she first came to our girls group four or five years ago. Cheryl has not only helped herself since she first came to our attention, but she now helps others, as a volunteer for our girls group and we were delighted to make her our first ever 'Positive Contribution' award winner.
Cheryl
Jaime
Finally, huge thanks to Chris for presenting all the awards, to Matt who was on photo duty and to Steve, who hosted the evening. And of course, many congratulations to all the winners!