12th May 2025 - Written by Brunelcare
Reading time: 3 minutes
On Wednesday 7th May we held our annual Long Service & Colleague Awards event to celebrate the achievements and invaluable contributions of our colleagues at Brunelcare.
The event was held at Leigh Court in Bristol and hosted by our Chief Executive, Oona Goldsworthy and Chair of Trustees, Graham Russell. We were thrilled to welcome special guest Peaches Golding, Lord-Lieutenant of the County and City of Bristol, to the event, who took part in the afternoon by presenting trophies to the winners of our colleague awards.
We kicked off the afternoon by celebrating our long-serving colleagues, ranging from 10 years of service to an incredible 30 years. The 48 colleagues invited to the event represented over 705 collective years of service at Brunelcare! Colleagues were presented with certificates, badges and a gift bag to recognise their hard work and dedication.
After a break for our guests to enjoy an afternoon tea, the second part of the afternoon held the much-anticipated announcement of our colleague award winners for 2025. Our colleague award categories provide recognition for areas such as best customer service, leadership and teamwork, and includes our Joy White Cup for loving in care.
The Joy White Cup is an award donated by the family of our late colleague Joy White, who sadly passed away in 2020. Joy was a long-serving Brunelcare colleague whose roles included Manager of Robinson House Care Home. Her career spanned 25 years, and she mentored a succession of managers and touched so many people’s lives across the charity.
This year’s awards also included a brand-new category titled the ‘Living the Values Award’ to be awarded to someone who embodies our charity’s core values, with the winner being chosen anonymously by colleagues from our very own Colleague Voice forum.
The winners of our Colleague Awards for 2025 are:
- Going Above and Beyond Award – Jini Kumar – Care Assistant, Glastonbury Care Home
- Best Customer Service Award – George Vile, Maintenance Operative, Housing
- Best Team Impact Award – Deerhurst Care Home Night Team
- Leadership Award – Dominic Hampton, Head Chef, Saffron Gardens Care Home
- Living the Values Award – South Gloucestershire Community Reablement Team & Sophie Lloyd, Digital Services (joint winner)
- The Joy White Cup – Julie Patten, Team Coordinator, Somerset Community Services
We welcomed special guests from our colleague awards finalist panel to help present the trophies to our winners, which included members of our Residents First Group, Care Focus Group and our Chair of Colleague Voice!
We would like to say a big congratulations and thank you to all our colleague award winners and long-serving colleagues for the ongoing dedication and passion put into improving the lives of the people we support at Brunelcare.
