Alex De Salis

Second year medic, Alex, has been volunteering with ANTS for two years and has proven to be a committed and highly valued member of the team. We are particularly impressed that she was willing to sit on a freezing cold mountain, in November, to act as a dummy rescue victim as a volunteer for the Mountain Rescue Training Team. This year she also stepped into the Teddy Bear Hospital Fundraising team and is giving up a week of her already reduced summer holidays to volunteer at 'Over the Wall' - a summer residential camp for children with serious illnesses.

Jamileh Hafezian

Jamileh has been volunteering on a weekly basis in both primary and secondary schools since September 2012. Jamileh used her artistic abilities in creating a back drop of 'The Wind in the Willows' for a school play, spending hours of her own time researching the design before sketching out the 5m square scene which the pupils painted showing enthusiasm and dedication to her volunteering in a school and making a positive impact.

Women's Rugby

This year the Women’s Rugby club have created a ruby coaching project aimed at young girls to target the taboo associated with rugby, thus giving them the opportunity to try and enjoy it, resulting in numbers attending having increased with each session. Members of the club have also participated in a 'Rugby Ready' training course to improve their coaching skills, which we feel shows real commitment to the programme. Women's rugby have also run taster sessions at Broomhall Community Centre and are leading a session at 'sports day' for the second year in a row.

Chess Society

This year Chess Society have set up a weekly Chess Club in a local Secondary School encouraging and enabling young people aged between 11 and 16 to play chess including catering for Special Educational Needs pupils and offering a coaching programme. They have also set up a Chess League in the school attracting over 100 participants. We have been really impressed by the passion shown by the volunteers and the overall success of the programme.

Ambassadors 'Great Sheffield Bake-Off'

Inspired by the 'Great British Bake-Off' the Ambassadors ran a student bake off at a residential care home treating the elderly residents to a range of home baked treats which the residents judged. The event also featured a routine by the Cheerleading Squad providing unusual and fun entertainment for the residents. We felt the Great Sheffield Bake-Off was an excellent example of taking a simple idea but really working on achieving a successful event for targeted service users, creating inter-generational mixing and as always where cake is involved it was a great success.

Elliot Chambers-Ostler (Flourish)

Eliot has spent this year volunteering for Flourish, never missing a session and always being the first to arrive and last to leave. He has established a very good rapport with the service users, project leaders and other volunteers. He worked in a team to run a very successful, creative trial session and is going to take over as one of the project leaders next year.

Madeleine Cullum (Lego Club)

Maddie has been described as friendly, reliable and enthusiastic showing excellent commitment to Lego Club. She has always been willing to help in any way possible, including attending extra evening sessions, packing away and even volunteering to miss a session when there were to many people to fit in the taxi to get to the school. She has been very committed, attending all our meetings and social events and has committed to being a project leader next year.

Laura Soleihac

Laura showed early enthusiasm for the Ambassador role helping out with our Showcase in September where she proved to be very friendly and approachable. She has continued her excellent work over the year most recently helping to organise the Volunteering Awards. We felt that Laura embodied the spirit of being an Ambassador, always smiling and happy to help and were impressed with her continued commitment over the year.

Dottie Greenwood & Rachael Hart (ANTS - A Nice Time on Saturdays)

Dottie and Rachel deserve this award for their never ending enthusiasm and commitment to ANTS. At the start of the year there were only two children on ANTS 'books', now, thanks to Dottie and Rachael's perseverance, there are at least 15 children who eagerly come on the monthly trips. Dottie and Rachael have come up with new games and activities, including 'Bowling Bingo' and the 'whipped cream challenge' to ensure the children have as much fun as possible and gain even more from each trip and that the volunteers look as silly as possible!

Flourish

Flourish provides skill building and social sessions each week for adults with Traumatic Brain Injury. The project provides much needed support at a time when individuals may have difficulties communicating, low self-esteem, be struggling to adjust to life after TBI and feel socially isolated.

This year the team of 4 project leaders and 20 volunteers have actively worked to improve the project using team building games to focus on social skill and ran two extra sessions after Easter in response to feedback that participants wanted more Flourish! The leaders have also run a successful social to bring the volunteers together and introduced online volunteer sign-up for sessions to make sign-up easier. Finally they forged links with the Brain Injury Centre in Sheffield and created a piece of art work for the waiting room.

Broomhall Homework Club

Everyone spoken to about Broomhall Homework Club has spoken passionately and excitedly about how great the project is. Leaders Tony and Polly are extremely dedicated and go out of their way to ensure that all volunteers feel welcome and valued. There are opportunities to work with both Secondary and Primary School pupils and volunteers feel integrated and encouraged to use their passions and skills. Broomhall Homework Club is a truly deserving winner of the student friendly organisation of the year.

Josh Jones (Sustrans)

Josh started out as a Sustainable Transport Volunteer through Sheffield Volunteering. He was then inspired to start a Sustrans Society at the Students' Union which now has over 100 members and has organised a number of events including bike maintenance classes and a charity bike ride. Josh has shown great leadership skills in motivating his fellow students to think about the way they travel and encourage them to walk, cycle, use public transport and car-share and the group members are spreading this message across the campus, helping the University to meet it's carbon reduction targets.

Steph Perry (ANTS & Cruse)

Steph has been volunteering with ANTS for two years. Having been through a similar experience to the children involved in ANTS she has displayed passion for the project alongside showing a deep level of understanding for what the project is, what it aims to achieve and the reasons why the kids are there. Volunteering with ANTS has helped fuel her desire to work with people struggling with bereavement as a full time career. She was recently successful in applying to a professional training course with Cruse the UK's largest bereavement charity, offering support to both adults and children to become a qualified Cruse Volunteer.

William Matthews (All Inclusive Trampolining)

William has been volunteering with All inclusive trampolining proving to be a positive and strong role model. He has been a regular volunteer and has slowly and quietly made an impact upon the group members. His ability to allow the members to engage and communicate with him on their terms has been described as really lovely. He has adapted with ease to work with the autistic users and has even made an effort to learn new languages to better communicate. Will's hard work and positive personality make him deserving of the Gold award.