ScotRail has marked final day of National Volunteer Week by hosting its first annual ScotRail in the Community Awards earlier today, Friday 7 June.
The ceremony was held at the Grand Central Hotel, Glasgow, with awards handed out to thank and celebrate the hard-working volunteers across Scotland’s Railway, recognising their contribution to the wider local community and railway.
Categories included Adopt a Station of the Year, Station Adopter of the Year, Community Project of the Year and Community Volunteer of the Year. A special Outstanding Contribution to Community Rail award was also presented.
The winners were:
- Adopt a Station of the Year: Dyce – The Dyce Gardening Club / Dyce in Bloom have involved the wider community in their activities for nearly a decade, which included nursery children assisting with bio-diversity planting. Redundant planters were donated by Aberdeen City Council, which the volunteers immediately set about recycling and installing at the station. They have engaged with the local Men’s Shed, and pupils from Dyce Academy designed art deco posters to be installed at station this year.
- Station Adopter of the Year: Rosie Oberlander – Rosie was head of North Berwick in Bloom station adopters’ group and ensured the annual planting schedule was followed. Rosie watered all the planters at the station - a time-consuming task that was necessary at least three times a week in the summer. In 2018, the station was one of three shortlisted for a national station award. The appearance of the station has made a significant contribution to North Berwick in Bloom’s success in Beautiful Scotland and Britain in Bloom. The excellent and much-admired displays at the railway station are due to Rosie’s hard work, dedication, leadership and enthusiasm.
- Community Project of the Year: Moving On – Kilmarnock Station Heritage Trust. The Moving On provision is an outstanding social prescribing project which assists over 200 people in the local community per year. The project delivers physical and mental health wellbeing activity to assist those struggling with adversity including recovery from addiction, isolation, mental health issues or bereavement.
- Community Volunteer of the Year: Roy Brown - Roy is a member of the Highland Mainline Community Rail Partnership, representing Carrbridge station which is also his adopted station. Roy helps raise the awareness of CRP via social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and website. He ensures that information provided is accurate and is a real champion for community rail.
- Outstanding Contribution to Community Rail: Lynette Gray – Lynette has been at the forefront of a number of community projects in Fife over the past decade, stretching from North Queensferry to Cupar. From transforming disused railway buildings into art studios at Kinghorn and Aberdour station, to converting a waste area to a car park with impressive floral display at Kinghorn station. Lynette is the driving force behind the Artline Project, which brings together artists and community groups at stations between North Queensferry and Cupar. The Artline main event is the annual open doors event held in May, where the group promotes rail travel as the best way to travel to the exhibitions. Lynette’s community-spirit and dedication to making things happen has resulted in her passing her love of art, restoration and beauty on to her local community.
There is over 1200 volunteers across Scotland contributing to their local communities in a variety of different activities and projects – from community classes to station adopters.
More than 275 ScotRail stations across the country are part of the Adopt a Station programme, with projects across Scotland ranging from garden displays to charity bookshops, art galleries and model railway clubs.
ScotRail Head of Economic & Community Development James Ledgerwood said:
“We’re proud to mark National Volunteer Week by hosting our first annual ScotRail in the Community Awards.
“I’d like to congratulate our winners and thank all our volunteers for their hard work and contribution, not just to Scotland’s Railway, but to the wider local community.
“Supporting our local communities and their projects is incredibly important, and these awards have been a great opportunity for us to showcase the fantastic work of our many volunteers across Scotland’s Railway.”