"Service to the community"

comes in to the list of "King's Birthday Honours" quite a number of times today. It is usually the case. There will be people who will be recognised for their very real contributions to the community - and rightly so. There will also be a few who slip in who do not really deserve such an honour at all.

I know of one person who quietly informed the committee which oversees the awards that she did not want any such recognition. She had already been given recognition by the late Queen herself. There was no need to add to that but thank you. That woman was well worthy of an award. She had volunteered for many, many years and gradually taken on more and more responsibility. When she retired from her paid day job she quietly moved into another full time and unpaid job. She negotiated large sums of money for those most in need. At her funeral people asked why she had "never been recognised". I could have told them but I kept my mouth shut because that is what she would have wanted. There were perhaps two other people who knew and they did as well.

That woman was a real volunteer. She never expected anything in return. She had never married and any family had long gone. I worked with her for a long time and found her demanding but fair. She had a capacity to listen, really listen. If someone came up with a good idea that could be implemented then she would pull the core group together and involve them from the start...and that was leadership as well.

I have known other people to win awards. Some have deserved the "gongs" bestowed on them but others have done little to deserve them. They have accepted roles as "president" and done very little. Other people have done the hard work while they stand around and chat to the "VIPs". You were more likely to find the other woman in the kitchen doing the washing up after providing the afternoon tea. 

I have just glanced through today's list but I do not recognise any of the names in the lower orders. Hopefully they are people who do genuinely deserve acknowledgment and they will not, having obtained such an award, simply give up their roles. There is one person in this district who did just that. On learning that she had finally achieved her goal of an award she simply stopped working for the charity in question. It was a paid position and she had not reached retiring age. People were shocked when she did but I was more shocked when I overheard her telling someone that was all she had ever wanted. 

In my experience the best and most hardworking volunteers are very often the people who rarely get acknowledged and don't look for it. My thanks to all of them.