WESTBURY Young People’s Awards celebrated young people across the community on Tuesday 19th June. With over 180 nominees this year, and 12 award winners, it showed the great work of Westbury’s young people across a variety of categories.
The evening, hosted by Westbury’s community engagement manager, Liam Cripps, welcomed nominees, guests and sponsors to an evening of celebration to award Westbury’s young people for their hard work. During the awards ceremony, there were also performances from students at Matravers School including live music, dance performances and acting pieces.
The awards were: Sporting Team Award – Westbury Junior Rugby Tag Team; Best Sporting Individual – Ella Broad; Young Voice Award – Team Ten; Volunteering Award, – Matravers School Peer Mentoring Group; Team Arts Award – Endurance Dance Company; Individual Arts Award – Eleanor Sturgess and Alicia Renton; Young Carer Award – Liam Beeson; School Council Award – Fairfield Farm College; Young Leader Award – Cadet Corporal Joe Cannings; Young Achiever Award – Mitchel Brown; Chairman’s Award – Sarah Burr.
Thanks were given to headteacher Dr Riding, deputy headteacher Paul Clark, head of dance Gemma Richards and staff at Matravers School for hosting the event again and to the sponsors; Gooding Accounts, Martin & Co, Hire Standards, Westbury Lions, Places for People, The White Horse News, Hills Group, Selwood Housing, Tarmac and Sovereign Housing.
The awards were:
• Sporting Team Award, sponsored by Gooding Accounts and presented by Sam Gooding to Westbury Junior Rugby Tag Team. Their nomination said, “This team has progressed fantastically over the last year, representing the town in matches all over the county. Highlights have included beating North Dorset and playing on the Rec at half time in front of 15,000 spectators in matches against Bath and Melksham, and doing Westbury proud!”
• Best Sporting Individual sponsored by Martin & Co and presented by Luke Hames to Ella Broad. Ella’s nomination said, “She has inspired girls to get involved with football and currently has a position on the Wiltshire FA Youth Council as inclusion and diversity rep and is also a qualified football referee at the age of 14. She is also a county referee match official, runs the line for the U18 floodlight division and completes regular training at county level and national level at St George’s Park.”
• Young Voice Award, sponsored by Hire Standards, was presented by Matt Rowe to Team Ten. Their nomination said, “They provide engagement and support to the local community, taking pride in their school, encouraging good behaviour and results. As a group they have recently done some public consultations on proposed improvements to the community area and even came and spoke at the most recent Westbury Area Board. A truly inspirational group of young people.”
• Volunteering Award, sponsored by the Westbury Lions and presented by Lion Mike Pearce to Matravers School Peer Mentoring Group (collected by deputy head, Paul Clark). Their nomination said, “This team of year 12 students has given up hours of their own time to meet with referred students once a week, to support them with anything from friendship issues to exam stress and anxiety. They’ve also been running a friendly drop-in service at breaktimes to help those who are not confident enough to share their stresses with adults. ”
• Team Arts Award, sponsored by Places for People and presented by Colin Larrigan to Endurance Dance Company. Their nomination said, “This group perform all over the county and demonstrate how powerful youth dance can be. They provide role models for younger students to look up to, getting young dancers motivated and encouraged to dance. The boys are role models in the community for the inspiration they provide to future dancers.”
• Individual Arts Award, sponsored by the White Horse News, was presented by Lauren Balchin to Eleanor Sturgess and Alicia Renton. Alicia’s nomination said, “ Alicia performs as part of the school choir and a smaller vocal group called Harmonize. Over the course of the year this young lady has matured massively as a performer and has contributed to every performance event. She is incredibly passionate and inspires all of those around her.” Eleanor’s nomination said, “Ellie has worked tirelessly within dance to achieve her dream of becoming a professional dancer. She has recently been accepted into the highly prestigious ‘Laban’ to study dance performance in London, a highly competitive place, with people auditioning from all over the world”
• The Young Carer Award sponsored by Hills Group was given to Liam Beeson. His nomination said, “Liam is an inspirational character who thinks of his brother before anything else. Supporting him through ill health, he doesn’t have to be asked to do anything for his younger brother, he just gets on with it. Always putting the needs of his brother first despite his own battles, we are very proud of his achievements in overcoming his difficulties, to care for his brother when he is feeling low.
• School Council Award, sponsored by Selwood Housing and presented by Ged Caswell to Fairfield Farm College. Their nomination said, “In just eight months, the student council has gone from strength to strength with public speaking. For these students it is a massive achievement and confidence-builder as some of them were reluctant to take part due to having to speak and stand in front of their fellow students and yet they now stand there with confidence and pride. Being part of the student council has empowered the students to have a voice and set an example to others.”
• Young Leader Award, sponsored by Tarmac and presented by Andy Wright to Cadet Corporal Joe Cannings. His nomination said, “Joe is an exceptional young man, promising young leader and a credit to the contingent. He has been involved in Matravers’ Combined Cadet Force (CCF) since October 2016, developing into a central figure for cadets to approach and staff to delegate instructions too. In January 2017 he was promoted to the rank of cadet lance corporal in recognition of his personal standards, attitude, desire to be successful and raw, but promising leadership skills.”
• The Young Achiever Award, sponsored by Sovereign Housing, was presented by Scott Jacobs-Lange to Mitchel Brown. His nomination said, “Mitchel is a young man who has shown incredible self determination to over-come obstacles and perform fantastically well on the sporting stage.When he joined Fairfield Farm College in Sept 2017 his confidence was very low but his natural physical abilities began to shine through. His teacher took him to the National Disability Athletics trials in Exeter. In his first ever major competition and only his second ever athletics event, he finished 4th in the 400m, 4th in the 200m and won a magnificent silver medal in the 100m!! He is now in the process of being assessed for the Special Olympics.”
• Chairman’s Award, sponsored by Westbury Area Board, was presented by vice-chair cllr Gordon King to Sarah Burr. Liam Cripps said, “Our chairman’s award winner this year could have been nominated in a number of different categories, from carer to volunteer and leader to achiever but as a judging panel, we felt the Area Board chairman’s award was most appropriate.” Her nomination said, “This young lady is a carer and without her help, the person who nominated could not go about her daily routine. She has allowed her cared-for person to manage day-to-day tasks, working as a team together. This then leaves her cared for person able to leave the house, as all energy is not so sapped. She always tries to make her community a better place, whether it be picking up litter left in the park to helping decorate the council office’s Christmas tree last year. Also at Christmas she baked biscuits to raise money for the refuge in Trowbridge. She also collected and wrapped over 200 gifts. She is always caring and generous in her manner.”
