UNISON Organising Awards
The UNISON Organising Awards for 2017 took place on Thursday 22nd March 2018 in the Belfast Castle.
The awards took the chance to showcase the work that UNISON branches across Northern Ireland had successfully completed in 2017 and were attended by branches, regional staff, members of the NEC and the UNISON president Margaret McKee.
The ceremony opened with a speech from UNISON NI Regional Secretary Patricia McKeown who thanked all the branches and activists for the tremendous campaigns and work they had done over the past year to help our members, paid tribute to new stewards coming into the branches and thanked those nominated for excellence awards for their outstanding service to the union.
A special video of every nomination for each category was shown turning our branch activists into small screen stars for the evening! To open each category there were speeches from Thomas Mahaffy, Head of Organising and Denis Keating and Gabrielle Carton our Regional Convenors.
Awards were then announced by Regional Secretary Patricia McKeown and UNISON president Margaret McKee.
After the formal awards, a jazz band played for all the guests to enjoy and show off their fancy footwork!
We hope all our guests enjoyed the awards and remember, the Organising Awards is an annual event so branches should be thinking about nominations for next year while they carry out their successful work this year.
Congratulations to all our winners:
Recruitment and Organising Award
Gold - Nurse and homecare stalls and Support Services recruitment (Northern Health Branch)
Silver - Regional uniform campaign (Craigavon Health Branch)
Member Participation Award
Gold - NISCC training and information booklets (North & West Belfast Community Branch)
Silver - Petition against the Cuts in the Northern Trust (Northern Health Branch)
Negiotiation and Representation Award
Gold - Bring the RVH car park back into public ownership (Royal Hospitals Branch)
Silver - Recovery Plan to save Domicilary Home Care jobs (South & East Belfast and North & West Belfast Branches)
Highly Commended - Residential home care lack of air con in laundry (UCHT Branch)
Campaigning Award
Gold - Save Daisy Hill A&E department (Newry & Mourne Branch)
Silver - Bee Kind campaign against bullying (Northern Health Branch)
Highly Commended - Mental health befriending partnership in the Mater ED (Mater Hospital Branch)
Communicating Award
Gold - Memorial Books (Northern Health Branch)
Silver - Use of social media and branch website (Royal Hospitals Branch)
Organising New Steward Award
Gold - Samantha Thompson (Derry Education Branch)
Silver - Andrew Linton (North Eastern Education Branch)
Excellence Award
Gold - Angela Boorman (Northern Health Branch)
Silver - Debbie Coyle (Omagh Fermanagh H&SS Branch)
You can view some photos of the event here