What the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service means to us
In 2022, West Mercia Search & Rescue received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. It is the highest award given to volunteer groups in the United Kingdom, the equivalent of an MBE for organisations, and it is not given for a single act but for sustained excellence over years.
We do not often talk about ourselves in these terms, so allow us this once.
The award recognised things that mostly happen unseen. The volunteer who left a family dinner to spend nine hours searching farmland in the rain. The trainer who gave up another weekend so that new recruits would be safe near water. The fundraisers, the radio operators, the people who service the boats and restock the medical kits. Awards are usually given to individuals; this one belongs to every person who has pulled on the team’s kit since 2007, and to the families behind them who share the cost of every callout without ever appearing on a callout list.
In the same year, 31 of our longest serving members received the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Medal, awarded to those with more than five years of service. Some of those members have given far more than five. In 2024, members of the team were also awarded the King’s Coronation Medal.
What does it change? In practical terms, a little: the award carries weight with grant funders and corporate partners, and we use that weight in the team’s interest at every opportunity. In human terms, more than we expected. Volunteers who would never seek recognition were told, formally and nationally, that what they do matters. For a team whose biggest achievements usually cannot be spoken about, that meant a great deal.
The award sits on the shelf. The phone still rings at 2am, and the same people still answer it.
