Well what a rollercoaster of ‘shall we’, ‘can we’ and ‘we will’ feelings we went through before we made it to the awards! We initially started hoping that we would be supported to go the awards witha few of the people with whom we have worked with. The support we received really exceeded all our expectations!

For those who don’t know we got nominated in the ‘Organisation making a difference’ category in the inaugural ‘This is Manchester Awards’. The manager of the Sickle Cell and Thalassaemia Centre in Manchester, Verna Davies, with whom we ran a programme, nominated us. We were then short-listed with 10 other organisations in this category.

We didn’t want it to be just the two of us going to the event, so we came up with a crowd funding idea to create a highly diverse table. Even though as is often the case, it started slowly, we soon had some highly generous contributors that changed the feel of it completely. This included a couple of the organisers who thought our campaign was well worth the support! We are still very grateful to them.

The campaign even attracted the attention of the Result CIC canine in residence who agreed to be the Dogsperson giving updates about progress. She was a big hit with her public! See more about the crowd-funder here.

On the 8th of November, we were delighted to go along to the Hilton Hotel to one of the glitziest events for a long time! We mixed with famous footballers, leaders of local organisations and people from the restaurant, hotel and digital media sectors. It was a wonderful event with a focus from the judges not only being based on the quality of service from the shortlisted people orcompanies, but also other aspects like further considerations of the community and the environment which they work in.



We knew we had stiff competition in our category from some mighty, well established organisations. Our work is quite unique in the community and yet it was no surprise that Manchester City football club's City in the Community won in this category. Established for 32 years, they now deliver 13,000 project hours every year by using football within the health, education and inclusion areas.

Worthy winners!

We were very appreciative to have been nominated in the first place, then shortlisted and go through the whole fundraising experience! The whole thing has been so memorable and has helped raise our profile further to some who already knew us and people who didn’t have a clue about us as well!

We look forward to other similar experiences.