More than 20 people have been recognised for their service to the community with the award of Lord Mayor’s Medals.
The local heroes and their friends and family members were invited to a private event at the Lord Mayor’s Mansion in Clifton, hosted by Lord Mayor Andrew Varney and Deputy Lord Mayor Paul Goggin.
Now in its 41st year, the Lord Mayor’s Medals aim to shine a spotlight on the brilliant achievements made by organisations and individuals across Bristol who have gone above and beyond to improve the lives of their fellow citizens and local communities.
Among the recipients was Stella Harding, from the Friends of Clifton Centre and Library.
Stella has served as the secretary and is now the co-chair of the Friends group. Stella has performed a wide range of tasks – from curating the programme of events to taking responsibility for producing and arranging the delivery of the programme to all homes in Clifton, to putting out the chairs and welcoming the speakers to events.
Stella seemed to live at the library last year as it was used to deliver a full and varied programme of activities under the Warm Spaces programme run by BCC.
There are many elderly people in Clifton who are asset rich but cash poor and they appreciated having a warm and welcoming space to come to in the energy crisis. This programme has been maintained for 2024-25.
For the last four years, the Friends have run an annual LitFest and Stella has been the driving force behind this too. This year, over 1000 tickets were sold for a very successful weekend of talks.
The Lord Mayor said: “It was an honour to preside over this year’s Lord Mayor’s Medals ceremony in the company of 22 inspirational winners, who do so much amazing work in their communities. Bristol is a wonderfully diverse city, and I was delighted to see this reflected in the awards given out. We are lucky to have so many people prepared to devote countless hours of their free time in the service of others, and I was delighted to recognise their hard work, dedication and kindness at the ceremony.”