A record crowd of volunteers and ‘plus-ones’ joined us at Heathlands Village on a warm summer evening at the end of June, for our annual volunteer thank you event.

Usually scheduled for early June to coincide with National Volunteers’ Week, the celebration was postponed to ensure the presence of a very special guest – one of our Honorary Patrons, the Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis KBE – and it was certainly worth the wait! Below he is seen chatting with fellow patron, Mark Adlestone OBE DL.

Guests were delighted to hear of Sir Ephraim speak about his experience of walking along the ceremonial route to the Abbey to attend the Coronation of King Charles II – being greeted along the way with cheers and calls of “Shalom’.

“The more we respect our tradition,” he observed, “the more society respects us,” and he pointed to two of the “hallmarks of our tradition” – giving charity and doing kind deeds – which is of course exactly what volunteering is all about.

Primarily he wanted to express gratitude to our more than 500 volunteers,  remarking, “If not for you The Fed couldn’t do its work properly; if not for you people couldn’t function properly in their lives,” and ending by saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, I have the privilege right now to be in the presence of people who give others what they want: what we would want if we were elderly … if we were frail … to be there to hold our hand if we needed medical attention … if we wanted assistance from others…

“You are the experts in giving people what you would want, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart … you are amongst the finest people we have within British Jewry …”

If the evening were not already made special enough by the Chief Rabbi’s wonderful words, Manchester Poet, Tony ‘Longfella’ Walsh, then treated guests to his first public performance of ‘Not Alone’. This is the poem he was commissioned to write for The Fed in 2021.

People were spellbound and visibly moved by the power and emotion of his word craft and delivery. The poem tells the story of the Manchester Jewish Community and the golden thread of The Fed – in its various incarnations – which is woven through it – providing a constant safety net for those most vulnerable and in need.

A special presentation was made to Leslie Kay, BEM, for 65 years of voluntary service to The Fed. Leslie is pictured on the right, here with his old friend, Ike Alterman, congratulating the latter on the announcement, in the recent King’s birthday honours list, that he too is to be presented with the British Empire Award.

Dalia Kaufman, below, ended the official part of the evening with her first public address in her new role as manager of The Fed’s Volunteer Services department. Dalia has been with the team for eight and a half years in the capacity of Volunteer Training and Recruitment Officer and brings an abundance of experience (and exuberance!) to her role. She assumes the reins from Juliette Pearce who has expertly and sensitively guided and grown the team over the last 29 years.

Juliette is now solely responsible for managing ‘My Voice – The Legacy, which recently extended to London and the southeast, with Lauren Libbert as its project lead, and an anticipated significant growth in the volume of work undertaken to support Holocaust Survivors and Refugees to share their life stories both in print and in person.