On the evening of 11th November, the 29th Your Champions Awards ceremony was held at the Crown Plaza Hotel, Chester. This glittering event honours the unsung heroes of the local community in Cheshire, Wirral and North East Wales, and is a ScottishPower Foundation funded project.
Presenting the awards were Carl Wood, Managing Director of Trinity Mirror North West and North Wales and representing ScottishPower, Stephen Stewart, Director of SP Manweb. The guest speaker was Roger Black MBE who entertained the audience by talking of TEAM GB's success at the Rio Olympics and his own Olympic Silver medal in the 200m in Atlanta.
The 'Overall Champion' was Roz Tranfield from Wallasey, who after receiving treatment for breast cancer, has raised over £70k for Clatterbridge Hospital by organising a number of high profile events, and is now on track to meet her £100k target by this summer.
The 'Appeal of the Year' Award was presented to the parents of six year old Erin Cross who has been battling acute lymphoblastic leukaemia for most of her life.
Earlier this year she suffered a relapse, a sign that her current treatments were no longer working, and leaving her family to face a race against time to save her life. They needed to raise more than £100,000 in less than eight weeks to give her the chance of lifesaving treatment in the USA.
The appeal went global, was featured on Good Morning, Britain – and £140,000 was raised in just over a week. Erin is now back in the UK and will receive a bone marrow transplant next week.
The final presentation of the evening was for the 'Champion of Champions' and was awarded to Pete Fuller from Mold.
On a visit to his local supermarket Pete witnessed a horrific, racial attack on a local dentist. He intervened and got the assailant to put down his weapons. In court, after handing the assailant a life sentence, the judge commented that this attack could easily have escalated to murder.
Pete Fuller has since received a 'Pride of Britain' Award, as well as, a St David’s Award for his intervention and bravery.
