For the first time ever, a posthumous award was made. Nominations were received from several different people for Richard Phillips who died suddenly in October 2015. The Committee, at its meeting in January, was unanimous in deciding that Richard was the worthy winner.
Chairman, Maureen Spinks, said in her citation:
I can’t believe that it was only a year ago that Richard stepped down from the Committee and was awarded life membership of The Badsey Society. It is most fitting that he should be given the Tony Jerram award posthumously as if it hadn’t been for both him and Tony, none of us might be sitting here tonight. When Richard arrived in the village in 2000, he very quickly established the award-winning website, www.badsey.net, and suggested to Terry Sparrow that he might like to write a second edition of A Brief History for which Richard did the design. But to publish a book, we needed money. Tony Jerram had long thought that it would be a good idea to form a village society and, having attended many functions, knew that grants were available. Richard immediately started seeking out grant possibilities but discovered that money would not be given to an individual, only a Society. Thus in 2002, The Badsey Society was formed with Tony as the first Chairman and Richard as the first Secretary – and £2000 in the bank from Worcestershire County Council.
Lizzie told me recently that Richard had never lived in a village until he moved to Badsey and was concerned that he would not have enough to do. But, in his quietly efficient way, he made things happen, many of which we take for granted these days. When www.badsey.net was launched in 2000, we were one of the few villages in the country to have such a comprehensive website full of historical data, and very soon we were getting followers from all over the world. Our global community was just as important as our local community and we began to get emails from Australia and elsewhere from people whose ancestors left Badsey 100-200 years ago.
Richard was a very humble man, but what we, The Badsey Society, and the village as a whole owes to him is very great. It is therefore with a bittersweet pleasure that I would now like to invite his partner, Lizzie, and his son, Will, to come and collect the award on Richard’s behalf.
Mrs Barbara Jerram then had great pleasure in presenting the Tony Jerram award to Lizzie Noyes and Will Phillips, who accepted it on Richard’s behalf.