TOWN AWARDS
NIGHT
Most people
think that Santa’s “little helpers” are the elves and
dwarves who live at the North Pole but the town
councillors of Pembroke Dock had inside knowledge that
one little helper is living in Pembroke Dock and has
been doing his good turn for the local children each
festive season for the last twenty one years. So this
Christmas they decided it was time to recognise his
efforts with some town council mementoes on behalf of
the people of the town.
Paul George was
one of six people invited to the council chambers and
the other five were all nominated by local people for
the Pembroke Dock Council Community awards which
recognise public spirited work and charity
volunteering. Those five received certificates and town
council mementoes at a special evening in the Council
Chambers in December.
Every good
organisation needs it’s behind the scenes grafters and
the success of the Sunderland Trust in creating their
museum records and displays, generating a large number
of visitors to Pembroke Dock, is down to a strong team
effort. Two members of that team are Alan Ross and Mike
Hurley who were nominated as having done a huge amount
of hours of behind the scenes work in the archives
section – the backbone of any such museum group.
Two similar hard
workers from another voluntary organisation were also
nominated, as Yvonne Earl and Beryl Wright have
contributed so much towards the Encompass Group, which
has charity work and all kinds of Community Training as
two of it’s core aims.
Those Four
awards were the Commendation awards and all were
extremely deserving, but the council reserves a special
Award Of Merit for exceptional levels of community work
and this year it was presented to Mr Ron Watts. He is
currently Chairman of the Museum Trust and a keen
observer of everything that is going on in Pembroke Dock
– but he will readily admit that he does less now than
he used to. However his “ reduced work” is still a
great deal and it was not so long ago that he was an
industrious town councillor and also past Mayor and
also helped start up the current Pater Hall Community
Trust of which he was chairman for the first few years.
An ex military man and keen historian, he has completed
a history of all the army regiments stationed at
Pembroke Dock and also put together his own potted
history of the town – focussing mainly on the Central
ward which he used to represent as a councillor. These
fascinating and information packed articles can be seen
on the history and Military History sections of the
Pembroke Dock web site. They are well worth checking
out.
Left to right
are: Alan Ross, Yvonne Earl, Beryl Wright, Mayor Cllr
Andrew McNaughton, Ron Watts, Mike Hurley and Paul
George