When we will do it?
We will do this every year at the National Gathering as we celebrate another year in the life of the movement. We will call these the ‘Birthday Honours’. We will also do this every January, calling these the ‘New Year Honours’.

Timescales for requesting nominations etc.
Aug – Dec Nominations and preparations for the ‘New Year Honours’
Jan ‘New Year Honours’ announced
Feb – July Nominations and preparations for the ‘Birthday Honours’
Sept ‘Birthday Honours’ announced at the National Gathering

How to nominate your leaders
If you would like to nominate one of your leaders for a special recognition honour, please contact Mark Arnold, Volunteers Director, giving details of your group, details of the leader you wish to nominate and some background as to why you feel they are especially deserving of recognition. We are hoping that this can be done without the nominated leader being aware of it, so that the special recognition honour comes as a surprise.

Please note: Nominations for the 2008 ‘New Year Honours’ are now open, so please get your nominations in fast!

What happens next?
Once we have received some nominations, we will contact those groups that have nominated a leader and get a few more details. We plan to award up to five special recognition honours at each of the ‘New Year Honours’ and ‘Birthday Honours’. If we get more than five nominations for a particular round of special recognition honours, we will select the most deserving five and discuss with those nominating the rest the possibility of carrying their nomination forward to the next round.

Anything else?
In parallel with the group nominated special recognition honours, we plan to introduce recognition awards for 10, 25 and 40 years of volunteering. People reaching these milestones will be personally thanked in writing, and publicly mentioned; on-line for all of them and also in Update and Engage for the 25 and 40 years, with a small token of appreciation sent to each. These awards will take place at the same time as the ‘New Year Honours’ and ‘Birthday Honours’