A CELEBRATION of Pride of Reading Awards past and present – and future – was held in the town centre to launch this year’s 20th anniversary awards.
Nominations are now open for the annual event which celebrates the town’s unsung heroes, terrific businesses and organisations, and those who do so much, often without any recognition, to make Reading a great place to live and work.
On Friday, April 19, more than 100 people, sponsors, supporters and organisers, gathered at the Malmaison hotel in Station Road to learn more about this year’s 20th Anniversary theme and hear the story of the awards.
Launched in 2004, and held every year since, each ceremony has been hosted by Reading boy Chris Tarrant. In that time nearly £100,000 has been donated to his chosen charities. There have been thousands of nominations and hundreds of winners.
This year there are more categories than ever – 22, with four new sponsors coming on board.
Former editor of the Reading Evening Post Andy Murrill shared with guests the story of how the awards came about after he had watched a similar event on the TV in 1999 and thought it was just what Reading needed.
The Reading awards were to be “a celebration of ordinary people doing extraordinary things,” and would need sponsors. It took five years to get it off the ground. “I never thought we’d have got to this 20 years later,” he said. See the full story here.
Among the new sponsors this year is Deloitte. Managing partner regional markets Daniel Barlow shared how they became involved.
Last year they won Business In Action Over 50 Employees for the work they did supporting Reading-based charity Refugee Support Group.
This was the catalyst for them coming on board as sponsors this year.
Daniel said this year the company was sponsoring the new category Welcome All. “With Nick Harbourne, the chief executive of Reading Refugee Support Group, we discussed what we really liked about Reading was the fact it is a welcoming place, it is a diverse place, it is an inclusive place.
“We wanted to celebrate the diversity and welcoming nature of Reading, so that’s our story of how we became a new sponsor. We are really happy to be one, and hopefully for many years to come,” he added.
Mary Genis of CultureMix Arts leads steel percussion orchestra RASPO and she and other members played music to welcome guests. She told how becoming a winner of the Cultural Contribution award in 2009 was so important to her, adding it provided validation for the work she was doing and a sense of being seen.
The launch event was hosted by BBC TV presenter Matt Allwright, who grew up in Reading and is very fond of his hometown, with assistance from Andy Jones of BBC Radio Berkshire.
Matt said: “This is one of my favourite days of the year, we get to launch the Pride of Reading Awards for 2024.
“This year marks 20 years of the awards… of making sure Reading understands its value, the value of what people here do for each other, why it’s a very special place and why we can call this a community, not just a town.
“It’s the biggest and best town in the country, and it’s full of people who look out for each other – that’s what I love.”
Among the VIPs attending was Reading legend Sir John Madejski, a patron of the Pride of Reading Awards.
He said: “It’s so good to be here for the 20th anniversary and celebrating Reading; it’s got so much character and individuality as a town, and so do its residents.
“We have our own ethos; we dare to be different, and we dare to challenge the normal structure of things.
“I love people who have the character to win through, and that’s what the Pride of Reading Awards are here to celebrate.”
One of the awards organising committee said they were thrilled with how the launch event had gone.
“We’re absolutely over the moon – today has been a lot of fun,” adding they were delighted with the speeches and new sponsors that have come on board, who helped make the awards happen.
“One thing we love about the Pride of Reading Awards is that it’s free for those people who attend the ceremony. All those different people from across Reading who are doing really good work can come and have a super day with all sorts of people, and they can do that at no cost to them. It’s generous and remarkable of our sponsor and our supporters.”
They also thanked the businesses that helped make the launch event possible.
“There’s a lot of darkness in the world at the moment, so anything that sheds light and colour on the special things that are happening really means a lot.”
The event included a pub quiz with a musical theme from Cryptic DJ, who holds a music quiz in The Purple Turtle in Gun Street on the first Thursday of the month. The winning team, dropping just one point, won tickets to ReadiPop Festival, kindly donated by Readipop.
One special touch for this year’s awards is a collaboration between Reading arts collective Jelly and Haslams.
More information on this will be available soon.
Now it’s time for people to get nominating for the many categories the awards support. Find out more at porawards.co.uk
