New Year Honours for Wellingborough charity trailblazer, Corby youth work pioneer, Oundle first response founder and Kettering village super-volunteer

Four North Northamptonshire community champions have been honoured for their incredible voluntary work.

The New Year Honours are given to those people who go above and beyond to make their towns and villages a better place to live.

And this year there are recipients from Corby, Wellingborough, Oundle and Cranford, near Kettering.

Glennis Hooper, the Wellingborough-based founder of cancer charity Crazy Hats, and Corby youth work expert Laura-Jane Rawlings have been awarded the MBE.

Rachel Davis, who keeps the village of Cranford ticking over, and Paul Brackley, one of the founders of Oundle’s Community First Responders, have been awarded the British Empire Medal.

Here’s more on each of our worthy recipients:

Glennis Hooper MBE

She’s been known as ‘One Crazy Lady’, but now Glennis Hooper, the founder of the charity Crazy Hats, will be Crazy Lady MBE.

Glennis, 69, has been honoured for charitable services to people with breast cancer, masterminding charity events to raise more than £3m.

The former headteacher whose career was cut short after being diagnosed with the disease says it’s an ‘absolute honour’ to receive the award but wants everyone who helped Crazy Hats to share the accolade.

She said: “ It’s an absolute honour. I feel very proud of everybody at Crazy Hats. It’s about us as a team - all the volunteers, all the businesses who supported us every person who donated - even just a single penny.”

As a breast cancer survivor, she took a brave step in 2002 to initiate the Crazy Hats Breast Cancer Appeal with her close friend, Marilyn who sadly passed away from breast cancer in 2022.

She decided to raise funds to help others, focusing on ‘crazy’ hats as she often used hats to disguise her hair loss after treatment.

What started as a one-time event grew into a widespread movement, providing financial support for all breast cancer support stages in Northamptonshire, including the provision of specialised equipment for hospitals throughout the region.

During the charity’s two decades, Glennis spearheaded more than 17 sponsored walks at Kettering's Wicksteed Park, as well as hundreds of smaller events.

Over the 20 years of the Crazy Hats Breast Cancer Appeal, she successfully raised over £3.5.m until its final donation in December 2021. She cut the ribbon on the final project earlier this month – The Crazy Hats Lounge at Kettering General Hospital.

Laura-Jane Rawlings MBE

Laura-Jane, from Corby, left school at 16 after growing up as a free school-meal student. And since then she’s become one of the UK’s leading youth employment experts.

She set up Youth Employment UK in 2012, a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, to tackle youth unemployment and during its 11-year history she has made sure that young people have been able to have a say on the youth employment issues that matter to them.

She created a Youth Ambassador Programme which has in turn supported more than 300 young people to volunteer and share their views, experiences and ideas with government officials, Ministers, employers and young people.

Youth Employment UK, under her leadership established the Youth Voice Census, a national survey that is now regarded as the leading youth voice research in the UK. In 2022 the census provided the views of more than 4000 young people and the report was downloaded more than 66,000 times.

In 2020 the 44-year-old co-founded the Youth Employment Group (YEG) a specialist policy group that aimed to support the government to reduce the impact that Covid-19 would have on youth unemployment. It has more than 300 organisation members and worked closely with DWP and DfE to support youth employment policy development, helping to shape the Opportunity Guarantee which Kickstart formed part of.

The policy and research work of Youth Employment UK includes the management of the All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPG) for Youth Employment. This important APPG has led to a number of inquiries that focus on the challenges and opportunities for youth employment.

Rachel Davis BEM

Cranford resident Rachel Davis has been awarded a BEM for her work supporting the community in Cranford and for her voluntary work for organisations in Northamptonshire.

A longstanding member of both the Cranford Village Hall Committee and the Cranford Parish Council, she has instigated and been involved in many projects benefiting the whole village including annual fundraising events such as a music festival, quiz nights, cream teas, village races as well as cooking for Harvest Festivals and Christmas dinners.

She said: “Cranford is a fantastic village and while I am humbled, honoured and proud to be recognised for my contribution, I am just one of many residents who pull together and work hard to help others and to create such a wonderful, supportive community."

In 2018, she set up a lunch club to provide single elderly men in the village with the opportunity to learn to cook and to socialise on a regular basis.

During the Covid pandemic she shopped and ran errands regularly for elderly residents and set up a Soup Club where she cooked and delivered more than 350 meals over the winter to residents.

An active volunteer with the Guide Dogs since 2008, she walks puppies for a year at a time and socialising them until they were ready for training. Her love of dogs sees her volunteer at Kettering General Hospital, visiting children on the wards as pet therapy.

As well finding time to mentor a young person in foster care in Corby, she has fundraised for Cynthia Spencer Hospice in Northampton, raising £8,000 with a wing walk together with her husband’s 3-Peaks Challenge.

Paul Brackley BEM

Paul said that when the letter dropped onto his doormat to inform him he had been awarded the British Empire Medal, it was a big shock.

The 59-year-old, who helped set up the volunteer Oundle Community First Responders when – like those in many rural areas – the town’s ambulance station closed in 2003, said: “I found out three weeks ago. I got a letter from the Cabinet Office and I didn’t think it was real. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone, just my mother, and she didn’t think it was real at first either!

“You just don’t think people like me would get something like this.”

Oundle School worker Paul is now the group co-ordinator for the team and has volunteered more than 41,000 hours as a responder while he has worked full-time.

He added: “It’s good to be doing this in your own community. Our nearest ambulance station is in Corby so it’s about providing basic life support and giving people a chance until an ambulance arrives.”

More than 4,100 patients in the local community have received his timely care. He has also inspired others to become Community First Responders; has negotiated tirelessly to ensure appropriate and effective training has been provided; supports and develops new members; and has organised countless fundraising activities.

Alongside the many hours that he volunteers as a responder, he has also regularly assisted at local HeartStart sessions run by the Rotary Club, demonstrating and encouraging members of the public to understand and feel confident in CPR methods and the use of an Automatic External Defibrillator.

He was instrumental in encouraging Oundle Town Council in their bid to provide several public access AEDs at strategic points in the town, and since the installation, he has undertaken to travel round and monitor these on a fortnightly basis and does the same for several local villages.

He responded to calls throughout the pandemic, assisted in a programme to deliver PPE to ambulances in the county, and worked as a vaccinator whenever he could, inspiring others in the group to do the same.