Everyone’s a winner! - Cats Protection celebrates the Volunteer of the Year Awards 2011…

The Volunteer of the Year Awards capture the essence of what it is that makes our volunteers so special and who better to tell us who those exceptional people are than our volunteers and supporters themselves?

This year’s award ceremony was held at the National Cat Centre, during the charity’s AGM. Despite the rain, the awards were a fantastic success and a great day was had by all!


Homing Hero Award

Carol Carr from the Durham & District Branch started the ceremony by receiving the Homing Hero Award, designed to recognise those who have a hands-on role in finding a new home for a cat.

Since joining CP nearly 20 years ago, Carol has cared for and hand reared over 770 cats and kittens. Waking every two hours through the night – with a little help from her husband – she feeds and cares for the kittens until they are strong enough to take care of themselves.

She is a true inspiration to Fosterers and, indeed, to everyone in the branch, with excellent animal and people skills and puts these to best use when assessing the best placement for CP cats and kittens. She is thoughtful, considerate, approachable and always available to offer reassurance to new owners.


Cat Care Champion Award

Gillian McMullen from Northern Ireland’s Armagh Branch scooped the Cat Care Champion Award in recognition of her tremendous feline welfare efforts.

Gillian has worked tirelessly to establish and make the very first branch in Northern Ireland a great success. Helping to set up a new branch is never easy, but Gillian takes each challenge on with a smile and great determination. Without her, the branch would not be where it is today.


Key Communicator Award

Friends of Bridgend Adoption Centre volunteer, Sue John was presented with the Key Communicator Award, recognising her efforts in establishing communication links between Cats Protection and local communities. Sue’s incredible animal welfare background enables her to share her vast experiences, skills and knowledge with others. Always happy to offer advice, Sue actively teaches and promotes Cats Protection to local groups including Cub and Scout groups; encouraging newcomers and promoting feline welfare at every opportunity!

Her work even extends to other countries; travelling to Ibiza several times a year, where she works with a group called Care4Cats; helping to trap, neuter feral communities, liaise with vets and promote feline welfare throughout the island.


Fabulous Fundraiser Award

Julie Seymour from the Mid-Warwickshire Branch was presented with the Fabulous Fundraiser Award.

She has shown complete enthusiasm since taking on the fundraising role an it has never left her. Supporting a very active branch, Julie constantly strives to raise as much money as possible, always making plans for the busy fundraising year ahead.

Most weekends she can be found with her yellow gazebo somewhere in the Mid-Warwickshire area, with her famous tombolas, raising thousands of pounds for the branch over the year.


Unsung Hero Award

The Unsung Hero Award recognises those who are omnipresent yet sometimes go unnoticed in their volunteering role. South Ayrshire Branch’s Bobby McGaffney was presented with this award for the incredible amount of commitment and dedication that he has shown during his eight years with Cats Protection.

Regardless of personal circumstances and health; the cats and his fellow volunteers always come first. Whether it is working through the night; trapping feral cats, hand rearing kittens, running the office, shop, pens, managing the Fosterers, liaising with vets and maintaining the lost/found register he is always happy to lend his hand.

Unfortunately, due to health reasons Bobby could not collect his award in person, but he did send us a fantastic video to say thank you for the award. It will be live on the website soon.


Leading Light Award

The last category was especially difficult to pick a winner for, so we cheated and picked two! The Leading Light Award recognises those who lead by example; inspiring and motivating everyone around them. Joint winners, Carolyne Kemp from the Southampton Branch and Heather Cook from the Woking & District Branch, were both presented with this award.

Since taking over the Southampton Branch, Carolyne has shown a huge amount of dedication to turning it into the success it is today. The branch has a real sense of team spirit, which this special woman has created through her loyalty, kindness, hard work and trust.

As well as having a full-time job, she still has time to manage the branch, look after the cats in her eight foster pens, trap ferals, organise meetings, take phone calls and even make beautiful cat beds and catnip fish and notties!



If there were an award for the most received nominations ever, our second joint Leading Light Award winner would be receiving this too! Since joining Cats Protection over 27 years ago, Heather Cook has been a true leader; always putting other people first, she motivates, educates and gives confidence, not only to fellow volunteers, but to prospective owners and owners with difficult decisions to make. Forward thinking, Heather is always keen to develop new ways to promote the work of Cats Protection. As well as her volunteering activities, she takes time to spread the word; writing articles for many magazines, including The Cat. Check out her column on page 55. She also gives talks to various groups and supports students taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme.


Trustees’ Distinguished Service Award

As a separate award for which all of the category winners were eligible, the Trustees’ Distinguished Service Award is for those who the Trustees feel have shown an exceptional level of commitment and worthy of special recognition. The winner of this award was Carolyne Kemp.


Volunteer of the Year

Finally, we come to the overall Volunteer of the Year Award, chosen by an online voting poll. Having received a whopping 30 per cent of the votes, Heather Cook was presented with the Volunteer of the Year title and trophy.

Due to retire this year, we hope that winning this tremendous award is a fitting tribute to her time spent with Cats Protection.



All photo's by Roger Cook except Bobby McGaffney's image