The day of our award lunch finally dawned yesterday.As many of our medical travel insurance customers will know we have been running an award in association with Genetic Alliance UK to find the UK’s most extraordinary carer, and yesterday we held the celebration lunch.
The nominations we received were of the highest calibre, and our judge, Andrew Holt, Editor of Charity Times had a very difficult job picking a winner and runner up, but pick them he did.We welcomed our winner Richard Sutton and our runner up Suzanne Addison and their families to The Little Ship Club on the Thames in the heart of the City of London for the awards presentation and celebration lunch.
Our judge Andrew Holt and Genetic Alliance UK’s Director, Alistair Kent both commented how welcome these awards were in recognising the efforts of carers, who can very easily be forgotten, they generally just quietly get on with caring, they do what they do for love not recognition.Which is the very reason we wanted to launch these awards, we feel very strongly that the work carers do all day everyday should be recognised and celebrated.
Our winner Richard had had a very busy week, last weekend he staged the Disability Rocks festival, which is now in its second year.Richard set up and runs Disability Rocks, whilst also being his son Max’s full time carer.Richard set up Disability Rocks to help people living with a disability to have a positive experience of music and the arts.
Our runner up Suzanne cares for her husband Keith and their daughter who has an undiagnosed condition, SWAN (Syndromes Without A Name).Coupled with being a fulltime carer she also spends her time fundraising for charity and raising awareness of Swan UK, a charity that supports people who have children with undiagnosed conditions.
This award was initially instigated through my own experience of being cared for when I was diagnoses with cancer.However, I have been completely overwhelmed by the nominations we received for this award, people caring fulltime for their loved ones, but also reaching out to help others through their experiences, truly humbling.
