The Alan Hudson award

The 2024 winner

At our Summer Award Lunch on 11 June 2024 we were delighted to present this year’s award to the Over 60s Tearoom.

The Tearoom was opened to the public in the newly-renovated Thornbury Town Hall in June 1994 by a group of town councillors led by Cllr Clare Fardell, to be an informal café providing refreshments at reasonable prices as a place for older people to meet and chat.

In recent years the Committee, led by their Chair Julie Hughes, have branched out and now regularly hold social events for their customers. They organise quizzes, fish and chip dinners and afternoon teas. Their customers visit regularly and are welcomed by the volunteers who happily negotiate the minefield of making tea and coffee to everyone’s preferences.

We are more than pleased to be able to further mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Tearoom’s founding by making this award.

Previous winners

2023: Thornbury Litterbusters
2022: Ruth Williams
2021: No award
2020: No award
2019: Krunch South West
2018: Sandi Shallcross
2017: Thornbury Foodbank
2016: JIGSAW
2015: Pam Forrest
2014: Lions Club of Thornbury
2013: Thornbury Memory Café
2012: Dot Curtis
2011: Multiple Sclerosis People’s Help

About the award

We suffered a great loss in January 2011 when our chairman, Alan Hudson, died suddenly.

Alan joined the management committee of the Thornbury Volunteer Centre, formerly the Thornbury & District Volunteer Link, when it was created in 1988, and remained chairman for more than sixteen years.

In memory of him, we decided to create The Alan Hudson Award for Volunteering Achievement.

It is awarded annually and celebrates the work of an individual or group who, in the opinion of the Thornbury Volunteer Centre, has made a valuable contribution to the local community.