Argus Achievement Awards

In March this year, I found out that Debbie Newson, our Treasurer at Wellspring had nominated me in the Achiever of the Year category of the Argus Achievement Awards 2004.  (The Argus is the Brighton local newspaper) There were a lot of secretive phonecalls to my house, between Debbie, my parents and the Argus before I received a letter telling me that o had been shortlisted for the award, and was invited to an award ceremony at the Brighton Hilton Metropole Hotel.  A photographer from The Argus came to my house to take my picture to go into the paper with an article about me.

On Friday 21 st May I set off in our van with my supporting team – Sheryl who helps me at home, Jean, my university helper and Lisa who supported me at Chichester College . My father was our chauffeur for the evening! We arrived at the hotel about half an hour early as we had left plenty of time for hold ups. We waited in the lounge bar, which overlooked the Brighton promenade. It made me feel as if I was on the QE2 again! After about 45 mins we went to where everybody else seemed to be going. We were told we needed to use the lift to get to the ceremony, so were then escorted by a porter on a long trek through back corridors to the right lift. I got in the lift and the others followed me in, but the doors wouldn't close…To cut a long story short, we eventually realised the lift wasn't working because I had gone right up against the other doors and must have been in the beam or something! We got upstairs and went into the champagne reception where I saw a poster with all the nominees on it, including me. This made me realise it wasn't a dream! The champagne reception lasted about half an hour before we went through into the main dining room which was all set out with candles and balloons everywhere. It looked like the BAFTA awards! I met up with Debbie and Lorna from the Wellspring committee, but unfortunately they were on another table. After the three course dinner, it was time for the award ceremony, which was hosted by Nicholas Owen from ITV News. There were lots of other local celebrities there too who were giving the awards. I was feeling a little bit nervous at this stage as I wondered if I was going to win. Luckily my category – Achiever of the Year was read out first. Nicholas Owen read out a bit about each person nominated, then the winner was announced. In my category, a lady who voluntarily runs a club for children with autistm and aspergers won the award. At the end of the evening I met some of the celebrities who were there. We met Chris Eubank, Dave Benson Phillips (from CBBC), Fatboy Slim, Carol Barnes (also from ITV News) and Nicholas Owen. All the celebrities were really friendly and I had a photo taken with each one. I also had a really nice chat with Nicholas Owen and told him all about my course and what I want to do in the future. He said ‘hurry up and finish your degree. We need people like you in schools!' We eventually got home at 1.15am and I slept till 12pm on Saturday!

I had a fantastic evening and heard some amazing stories about all the brave and courageous adults and children who live in the Brighton area. Thank you Debbie for nominating me for the award!

Lizzie Baily lizzie@wellspringwestsussex.org.uk