Stephen Charnock, Julie Gray and Rachael Doyle from Newark, Nottinghamshire awarded BEM, MBE and OBE in King Charles III’s New Year’s Honours list
Three outstanding people from Newark have been named among the King’s New Year’s Honours List.
Stephen Charnock, 65, has been awarded a BEM for services to the community of Newark.
Having lived in Newark since 1983, Stephen spent 34 years working in the Royal Air Force and later as chairman of the joint audit and scrutiny panel of the Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Commissioner and Nottinghamshire Police Force.
More recently he is now a case worker and the branch secretary of Nottinghamshire Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association (SSAFA), the Armed Forces charity providing support and assistance to both serving armed forces personnel and veterans.
He is also the chairman of trustees for Newark foodbank and social supermarket and is a lecturer and volunteer at the National Civil War Centre on Appletongate where he transcribes 17th century information into modern-day English to discover the role Newark played in the English Civil War.
On receiving the honour, he said: “It’s an enormous privilege and I’m extremely proud to have received it.
“But I see it as much a recognition for all the collective work that all the volunteers do in the organisations I have an association with as my own individual efforts.
“I retired from the Air Force in 2013, but the things I take most pride in are the things I’ve done since then — working with the food bank, the Nottinghamshire SSAFA and being involved with the National Civil War Centre.
“I enjoy doing anything I can to promote the town and help those people that aren’t so well off.
“Nearly everyone has something they can offer to a voluntary organisation. I always say to people that have thought about volunteering but aren’t sure, that they should just do it because it as as much a reward for the people doing it as it is for the organisation.”
Julie Gray has been awarded an MBE for services to children with impairments in Nottinghamshire.
She is the founder of Adventure Activities for All Abilities — also know as the Newark 4As — a community club which encourages people with physical and learning disabilities to take part in sport, which is based at Newark Rowing Club on Farndon Road.
Julie, who is a former paediatric physiotherapist and worked at the Newark Orchard School, started the club over 30 years ago.
Since then she has helped hundreds of people access canoeing and kayaking both for sport and recreation and in that time the 4As have been awarded the British Canoeing Impact on Equality and Diversity Award, as well as various other awards including Newark and Sherwood’s Club of the Year.
Julie also spent over a decade as an ICF Paracanoe Committee member and was ICF head of classification from the time paracanoe was first accepted by the International Paralympic Committee until the Rio Paralympics in 2016.
Rachael Doyle has been awarded an OBE for services to energy efficiency and to diversity and inclusion.
Rachael is the current director of Chirpy Heat and has worked in the sustainability sector for over twenty-five years.
In 2004 she co-founded SE2, a consultancy that brings together stakeholders to develop policies, strategies, guidance and practices to transform and decarbonise energy systems.
From 2016 to 2019, Rachael worked within the sustainability team at Southern Housing, with a focus on improving new and existing communal heating schemes and processes.
For a number of years, she has also been closely linked into the heating sector through her work with the government’s Heat Network Delivery Unit, Heat Network Investment Project and the Association for Decentralised Energy — for whom she is also a non-executive director.
