The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
A grand idea to give some elderly people a really merry Christmas has netted £1,000 for a Spalding day centre.
The Age UK centre in Park Road received the lion’s share of the votes after making the shortlist for the prize in a competition being run by Ringrose Law.
The legal firm was offering the Grand Idea cash prize to six organisations across Lincolnshire and Newark, which came up with the best ideas of how to spend it to make a difference to people in the local community.
The team at Age UK Spalding, led by general manager Liz Walmsley, proposed to spend it on gifts, decorations and parties to make Christmas extra special for day care centre users.
Liz said: “We were delighted to get down to the last three and then we had to get people to vote for us.
“We are really pleased to have won the money to give our users a lovely Christmas.”
Alex Bennett, at Ringrose Law, added: “Ringrose Law is delighted that Age UK Spalding has won the A Grand Idea Competition in Spalding. The competition is all about supporting and helping local community groups and this is the perfect example of how we can help people in our local community.
“We look forward to celebrating with Spalding Age UK at their Christmas Party in December.”
Other winners included a children’s bereavement centre in Newark and a children’s hospice.
Winning the prize was the icing on the cake for Age UK after its hard work was recognised with a national quality assurance mark.
To receive the mark, the centre was assessed during a day-long visit by inspectors, who scoured the policies and procedures and spoke to staff.
The day care centre passed at the first attempt and inspectors highlighted four areas of good practice.
There were no areas of major concern and no breaches.
Mrs Walmsley said: “Age UK has spent a lot of time putting this quality assessment together and it’s very stringent so we are delighted to have passed.
“We spent a lot of time getting ready and it went really well.”
