Mayor commends those recognised in Jubilee Honours List

Five Dudley borough residents and two borough organisations have received accolades. These include:

Mrs Heather Cruickshanks - MBE – Leader, Trefoil Guild, Stourbridge. For services to Girlguiding and to Young People.

Mrs Marilyn Hahn - MBE – Senior Psychosocial Practitioner, British Red Cross. For services to Mental Health and Wellbeing.

Mrs Jaqueline Careless – BEM – Project Manager, Allen’s Cross Community Garden. For services to the community in Northfield, Birmingham.

Mr Geoffrey Granner – BEM – For services to the community in the West Midlands.

Mr Alex Griffiths – BEM – For services to the NHS and to the community in the West Midlands during Covid-19.

Seventeen volunteer organisations across the West Midlands are celebrating being recipients of the Queen’s Award For Voluntary Service (QAVS) in this special Platinum Jubilee year, with two organisations from Dudley borough being recognised.

These include Hawbush Community Gardens, which has been running since 2014, thanks to Dr Ken Smith, a retired soil scientist, and volunteers who transformed a four-acre piece of overgrown scrub land into a vibrant community hub. It began by offering plots to grow vegetables, which now provide food for a food bank and developed into a wonderful environment where it offers therapy for those with mental and anxiety issues. There are classes in growing fruit and vegetables, horticulture, woodwork, social art, forest crafts and the gardens are a base for regeneration projects.

The other group is the Halesowen/Dudley Yemeni Community Association (HDYCA) in supporting the Yemeni community across the Halesowen and Dudley areas and helping them to not feel isolated. Volunteers offer Arabic-speaking benefits to Arabic speaking refugees and asylum-seekers from Syria, Iraq and Yemen. From the Centre, people are offered advice and guidance and there is good links with services locally so many “hard to reach” people can gain the support they need.

Councillor Sue Greenaway, Mayor of Dudley, said:

Receiving national recognition through the Queen’s Honours system is a tremendous accolade, and to receive a Jubilee honour in this Jubilee year is particularly special. We know there are so many wonderful people and organisations across Dudley borough doing tremendous work and we are always keen to encourage people to nominate others for these awards.

I would like to commend our five borough recipients and our two community groups on their achievements and thank them for their tireless efforts in making a difference.

The Lord-Lieutenant for the West Midlands, John Crabtree OBE said:

These seventeen organisations are all run by volunteers that are dedicated in their support and generous in giving their time to make the communities they serve a much more enriched place to be. It is volunteers, like these, that make our region such a great place to live and let’s celebrate their incredible recognition, which is fitting for the Platinum Jubilee year.