On Thursday 28 September, we held one of our most highly anticipated dates in the AFG calendar year – the Celebrate Success Awards. Hosted at a picturesque venue in the Cheshire countryside, The Mere Golf Resort & Spa provided the backdrop for our Awards ceremony for the second year running.

We were delighted to have our biggest ever attendance at this year’s Awards, as we welcomed over 200 guests from our frontline colleagues to our head office staff, our Senior Leadership Team, as well as five of our Trustees. Our annual Celebrate Success Awards gives colleagues from across the organisation the opportunity to come together in celebration of our achievements, both collectively and individually. This year we received a record of 450 nominations, which highlights the fantastic work that our frontline and head office colleagues have carried out across the last year.

Due to our record number of nominations this year, we expanded the number of finalists from three to four people in most categories, which allowed us to share more success stories on the night than ever before. Many of our 13 award categories represented AFG’s important values – from ‘We Take Ownership’ to ‘We Make a Positive Difference’. The winners of each Award were judged to have gone above and beyond to portray these values in the work that they do, throughout the last 12 months.

And the winners are…

We are one – Cleveleys Avenue 

We raise the bar – Karen Redhead  

Every person matters – Dawn Fletcher (Retford Road) 

We make a positive difference – Dawn Tattersall (Parklands Court) 

We take ownership – Craig Irvine (Naylorsfield and Hartbourne) 

Head office colleague of the year – Simon Porter 

Head office team of the year – Learning Team 

Frontline colleague learning disability – Johnathan Higham (Retford Road) 

Frontline team learning disability – Albourne Road 

Frontline colleague mental health – Jessica Teasey (Meadow Park) 

Frontline team mental health – Meadow Park 

Most impactful newcomer – Akinlose Akingbade (Alfred) (Southport Road) 

Inspirational leader – Melissa Campbell 

Jonathan, one of our outstanding Support Workers in Liverpool, and winner of ‘Frontline Colleague of the Year for Learning Disability’, said: “I put a lot of effort into my job, to make each day as fulfilling as possible for the people we support. It’s nice to be recognised for the hard work that we do.”

Thank you to everyone who attended this year’s Celebrate Success Awards, and congratulations to our Finalists and Award Winners!