Queen's award for volunteers

To celebrate her Golden Jubilee, The Queen announced a new, annual Award to recognise and reward excellence in voluntary activities carried out by groups in the community.

The Queen's Award for Voluntary Service (formerly known as The Queen's Golden Jubilee Award) is given for outstanding achievement by groups of volunteers who:

• regularly devote their time to helping others in the community
• improve the quality of life and opportunity for others
• provide an outstanding service

This year’s winners include organisations as diverse as:

• The Channel Islands Air Search who provide an emergency airborne search facility in the waters surrounding the Channel Islands
• Barnabus, a voluntary group which supports the needs of the homeless and female street sex workers in Manchester with food, medical facilities and educational resources
• Strokes R Us,in Stoke-on-Trent, giving support and advice to people who have stroke related health difficulties

All winners have been nominated by members of the public who have either benefited from their work, or seen the positive effect on their community.

The Award is only given to those groups where volunteers are judged to have regularly devoted their time to providing an outstanding level of help to other people.

If you know a volunteering group that are really making a difference to your community, then nomination forms for the 2006 Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service are available from www.queensawardvoluntary.gov.uk or by calling 0845 000 2002.

The nomination period runs until 30 September 2005.