TWO Olympic medallists, a former TV keep-fit expert and successful businesswomen are among those shortlisted for this year’s Sue Ryder Care Women of Achievement Awards.
The awards, which are organised by the charity’s hospice in Nettlebed and supported by the Standard, celebrate women who have excelled in life or business.
They will be presented at a glittering ceremony at Phyllis Court Club in Henley on Thursday, November 19. The nominees include:
Lizzie Webb, from Kingwood, who found fame in the Eighties as the keep-fit instructor in the early days of TV-am.
Now she spends much of her time teaching fitness instruction to young offenders at Huntercombe Young Offenders Institute as well as inmates at Reading Prison. The aim is to give the offenders the chance of a career when they are released.
She also acts as a mentor to the Huntercombe inmates when they attend court. She works closely with Olympic rower Debbie Flood, an officer at Huntercombe, in a business called Body Rocks, which offers young people at risk of social exclusion the opportunity to achieve a fitness teaching qualification.
Debbie, from Henley, won the sport and recreation category at last year’s awards for her charity work and inspiring others.
Robyn Jones’ first job was washing dishes but now she heads up the Charlton House catering company, which is ranked the 67th fasting- growing business in the UK. She started the company in the spare bedroom of her home in Nettlebed in 1991 and by the end of her first year had secured three contracts and was employing 16 staff.
Now the business, based in Dunsden, has an annual turnover of £80million, employs 2,000 people and has 150 sites throughout the UK.
Muffin Hurst runs the Henley Children’s Theatre Group, which was established 40 years ago by her grandmother, Flavia Pickworth.
Muffin, who lives in Pyrton and whose father Mike was a member of Sixties pop-folk group the Springfields, runs classes on Saturday mornings and puts on two shows at the Kenton Theatre each year.
Jo Southwell is an actor who started the Henley Fringe festival in last year. This year, it ran to 30 shows, including The Vagina Monologues, in which she performed. The festival is a huge project involving months of planning, auditioning and promoting shows. The shows are aimed at local people and tickets are deliberately affordable.
Juliet Machan, of Chiltern Close, Henley, formed wwwbabyboomboom.com four years ago.
The company produces multi-lingual music CDs that help babies and young children familiarise themselves with a second language through songs and nursery rhymes.
It won the category for best modern foreign language product in the Practical Pre-school Awards, was nominated in the 2009 Nursery World awards and was also a finalist in the Business Link new business category of the Oxfordshire Business Awards.
Juliet also runs a small marketing agency while raising her two young daughters.She was a member of the GB rowing team in 1995 and 1998 and is now a member of the fund-raising committee at Upper Thames Rowing Club and is on the committees of the Henley Women’s Regatta and Leander Club.
Jane Lewis has been brown owl for 1st Nettlebed brownies for 20 years.
She voluntarily organises weekly meetings with all sorts of creative projects and outdoor activities, including taking the girls on camps.
She has to deal with huge amounts of paperwork every time she wants to introduce a new activity in order to comply with health and safety regulations.
Debbie Hemmins is nursery manager at the Rainbow Corner Nursery in Watlington, which she founded more than 25 years ago.
The nursery is part-funded by grants and fees but Debbie is a tireless fund-raiser. She has also played an active part in the Royal British Legion, attending meetings and arranging fund-raising, and volunteers for causes such as the Education Foundation, St Leonard’s Church in Watlington and Watlington Hospital.
Elaine Louks, of WoodLane, Sonning Common, has fostered 70 babies in the last 20 years.
The 55-year-old, who also raised her own three children and a stepson with husband Chris, says she is the “luckiest woman in the world”.
When asked by the Standard how she copes with parting from the fostered babies, she said: “The joy on the face of a couple who can’t have a baby when they meet one that is going to be theirs is reward enough.”
Scullers Miriam Luke and Guin Batten raced internationally for Team GB in the Nineties and were pioneers in bringing women’s rowing up to the standard it is today.They were in the women’s quad scull which won silver at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Britain’s first women’s Olympic rowing medal.
Both are now retired but still take part in fun events such as the Henley Veterans’ Regatta.
Miriam, of Chiltern Close, Henley, and Guin, of Luker Avenue, Henley, are passionate about inspiring the next generation of active young people. Guin works for the Youth Sport Trust and Miriam works as an ambassador in the schools network.
Susie Jordan, from Sonning Common, is a helper at the Sue Ryder Care hospice’s monthly sales.
Now aged 87, she has been sorting and ironing clothes since 1994 and, despite failing sight and being unable to drive, has been involved in recruitment and administration.
During the Second World War, she served in the WRVS and later became an air hostess. In more recent years, she organised holidays abroad for widows.
The nominees are entered in four categories: care and community; the arts; sport and recreation; education and enterprise. A special Sue Ryder Care lifetime achievement award will be awarded to an overall winner chosen from those shortlisted.
The nominees have been invited to the awards ceremony where there will be a champagne reception, three-course meal and entertainment.
Tickets cost £65, or £600 for a table of 10, and are available from the fund- raising office on (01491) 641070.
All proceeds will help Sue Ryder Care continue to provide specialist palliative care to people with life-limiting conditions from Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire.
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Published on 02 November 2009
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