MELKSHAM’S “phenomenal” pandemic volunteers have been praised by the town council.
“We should shout from the rooftops that this town council is proud of what our community has done over the last few months,” said cllr Mike Sankey at an extraordinary meeting of the full town council earlier this month.
To recognise the work of the 444 volunteers, who donated their time to the Melksham Community Response scheme during lockdown, town councillors have proposed to send a letter of thanks to each volunteer from the mayor and deputy mayor.
Other ideas proposed to thank the volunteers included a group civic award, a community event, and a double-paged spread in the Melksham News.
Cllr Hayley Illman added, “Without these people [the volunteers], this would not have happened. This is just yet another thing that has shown how amazing Melksham is and why we all sit on this council – they are the pride of our town.”
Cllr Terri Welch described the Melksham Community Response scheme as “an example of what community work can be”, whilst cllr Tony Watts added that the scheme should be used in the future as a “benchmark” to judge other community schemes.
Councillors also paid tribute to fellow councillor, Jon Hubbard, for his quick work to help set up the scheme.
“Jon was instrumental in setting up this scheme – he was the right man, in the right place, at the right time,” said cllr Watts.
The Melksham Community Response scheme, which is still operating and supporting residents affected by the pandemic, has helped almost 700 local residents since lockdown was imposed in March. Volunteers have helped to deliver prescriptions, make friendly phone calls, undertaken shopping trips and walked people’s dogs.
“Up until week commencing 26th July,” explained cllr Hubbard, “if you tot up all the time volunteers have put in, it comes to 2,625 hours.
“There is a government statistic that says you can value a volunteer’s time at £12 a hour – so the value of our volunteers’ time, if you can put a value on it, comes to £31,500 worth of work. So huge kudos and credit to them.”
Melksham Town Council staff, who helped manage the operational side of the scheme, were also praised by councillors.
Cllr Hubbard said, “Our staff and Melksham Without Parish Council staff went so far and above what was asked of them. One of our challenges was telling them to take time off. And not one of them talked about toil or overtime – huge thanks to them.
“Up until the week commencing 26th July – our estimate is that the town council team collective put in just short of 2,500 hours supporting the project. There were 990 hours of support from the parish council team.”
