BW honours waterway volunteers: British Waterways says it's honouring ten volunteer projects for their work in the last year:
The ten projects singled [sic] out to receive one of the inaugural awards were all nominated by BW staff and the presentations will be made during October by BW’s regional general managers.
Last year BW was involved with volunteer-led projects that contributed over 8,000 volunteer days to the promotion and upkeep of the waterways worth in excess of £400,000.
The honours are for the projects rather than the volunteer groups who did them.
Never mind which ten projects/groups; it's the principle that's the thing. It's a great idea, and I presume it's the work of Edward Moss, who earlier this year volunteered to became their National Volunteering Manager. Well done!
But the BW volunteer projects awards has a weakness: there are just too many awards. How can you 'single out' ten projects?
The point isn't to honour the individuals - since every volunteer group is worth of praise - but to draw attention to something special. Ten awards has an element of 'everybody has won, and all must have prizes', as the Dodo said in Alice In Wonderland.
The volunteer groups should now organise their own awards, honouring people within navigation authorities who have been helpful to the volunteers. By all means have a shortlist each year. But there should only be one sterling winner.
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