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Cornwall charity boss and wheelchair rugby chief in King’s Birthday Honours list
Eight people working to make Cornwall a better place for all have been honoured in the King’s Birthday Honours List. Lindsey Hall, the chief executive of the Real Ideas Organisation and David Pond, the former chief executive of Great Britain Wheelchair Rugby are among those who received an MBE for services to social enterprise and to the community in Cornwall and Plymouth and for services to wheelchair rugby respectively.
They are among 86 residents in the South West to be recognised in this year’s Birthday Honours List including eight in Cornwall who have either received an OBE, MBE, BEM or a King’s Police Medal.
The King’s first official Birthday Honours List includes recipients who have contributed significant amounts of service to their local communities and the country as a whole. Many have been awarded for voluntary work – going above and beyond to help others, while asking for little recognition in return.
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Deputy Prime Minister, Oliver Dowden said: “This year’s honours list is a testament to ordinary people who have demonstrated extraordinary community spirit, and I pay tribute to all those from the South West who have been recognised today.
“Our honours system has long been a way of recognising people who make an incredible contribution to life in Britain and beyond. We are now focussed on levelling up the system to ensure it represents the length and breadth of the country, and I hope that the fantastic stories this year ensure more regional nominations in the future.”
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“We are now focussed on levelling up the system to ensure it represents the length and breadth of the country, and I hope that the fantastic stories this year ensure more regional nominations in the future.”
Lindsey, 63, from Downderry in South East Cornwall, has over the years grown RIO from a single CIC with six staff members to a CIC group with around 100 people. The former Cornwall’s director of creative partnerships back in 2002, her work focused on how to improve education through creativity, particularly in some of the most challenging communities in Cornwall, and it was at this point she really understood how creative changemaking can transform lives.
This led to Plymouth Growth Board formally signing up to inclusive growth and the creation of the Resurgam Charter which now has over 200 businesses – big and small – signed up to work inclusively to reduce inequality and poverty.
She co-led establishing Plymouth as the first (joint) Social Enterprise City in the UK and Cornwall as a Social Enterprise Place, playing a major role in securing the recognition of social enterprise by local authorities. Lindsey also represented social enterprise on Cornwall’s Integrated Territorial Investment board and Heart of the South West LEP committee, working with regional and national social enterprise bodies.
On her MBE she said: “It was a surprise. It’s a weird thing to be honoured like this. I just get on with life, trying to improve people’s lives in Cornwall and in Plymouth. I have done some exciting things over the years, worked with very interesting people to make a difference in people’s lives. It is nice to be recognised but it still feels a bit weird.”
She said it may be her name on the MBE but insisted it is down to the team effort of all staff and volunteers working for RIO in improving people’s lives that is being recognised in the Honours list.
David Pond joined GB Wheelchair Rugby in 2009 and over 12 years as the CEO transformed the sport from a voluntary-led and delivered recreational activity, to a professional national governing body, with a ParalympicsGB team that took Gold during the Tokyo 2020 games – the first-ever wheelchair rugby Paralympic medal achieved by a European team, and the first gold medal for Great Britain in a team sport in the history of the paralympic games.
His drive directly resulted in the introduction of new variants, a youth programme, a large number of new clubs, working partnerships with the likes of Help for Heroes, and a growing respect within the GB Paralympic community – as a sport that is well run and delivers on its targets and aspirations.
David stepped down from his position at GBWR in September 2021 and has since been involved in supporting the humanitarian effort in the Ukraine. He travelled to Poland and then Ukraine in early March to help deliver critical supplies to those caught up in the conflict. Whilst there, David and his associates raised over £65,000 that was used to purchase four ambulances and life-saving medical equipment, medicines and supplies.
He continues to support the cause working as director of Ukraine First, a group of NGOs working with the Ukraine resistance movement to provide medical, humanitarian and protective aid.
On his MBE he said: “It was an incredible surprise and a joy and a sense of how generous of someone to take the time and trouble to make a nomination. It’s an honour not just for me but for all the volunteers, colleagues and board members who over the years have been part of the journey to create this fantastic opportunity for disabled people in Britain.”
Since 2009, the sport has grown from 17 clubs to 30 in the UK and now boasts a youth programme too and is fostering an athletes route for talented wheelchair rugby players hoping to make it into ParalympicsGB.
David added: “It’s now part of the Invictus Games and we have developed the game to be even more inclusive. You can play at club level or you can aspirations of playing for your country. It has helped normalise disabilities so people realise that we are all the same and that’s great.”
The others who received a gong in this year’s King’s Birthday Honours List are Dr Giles Francis Maskell, a consultant clinical radiologist, at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust in Truro and Dr Carol Lee Tozer, the former director of adult social services in Bodmin, who both received an OBE for services to diagnostic radiology and services to social care respectively.
The other MBE recipients are Deborah Jane Boden, from Fowey, the World Heritage Site co-ordinator and West Devon Mining Landscape World Heritage Site, for services to Heritage, Sarah Greenhalgh, the chairman of the Tobacco Factory Theatres. For services to Theatre and to the community in Bristol and Cornwall.
Sandra Lawrence, from Newquay, founder and director of Cornwall Accessible Activities Programme received a Medal of the Order of the British Empire (BEM), for services to families with disabled children and young people. While PC Emanuel Nathaniel Samuel from Devon and Cornwall Police, received a King’s Police Medal (KPM).
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