Boss of Salisbury charity given MBE in Queen's Birthday Honours
The full list of those recognised came out today (Saturday 10th October).
Last updated 10th Oct 2020
The CEO of homelessness charity Alabare has been awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday honours.
Andrew Lord, who lives in Amesbury, has been in his role at the organisation for 20 years, seeing it continue to grow over two decades.
He's now a 'Member of the Order of the British Empire' for services to the community in Wiltshire particularly during Covid-19.
Andrew has managed the charity through a difficult period in the pandemic, who had to adapt their services slightly to care for their clients.
Alabare now provides a home to over 350 homeless and vulnerable people every night and supports around 2,000 every year across the South West.
Speaking about his recognition, Andrew told Greatest Hits Radio:
"It feels absolutely wonderful, it was a lovely surprise, I wasn't expecting it and I'm over the moon. I heard about a week ago or so, initially I got an email and there was a follow up telephone call and to be honest when I first saw the email I went onto the government website to check it wasn't a spam email because I was totally surprised about it!
Having worked for Alabare for 20 years now, the organisation and what they do is absolutely wonderful and the real success is all the colleagues of the organisation."
Malcolm Cassells, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Alabaré, added;
“I am delighted that Andrew Lord has been named in the Queen’s honours. Andrew has worked tirelessly over the past twenty years as the Chief Executive of ‘Alabaré Christian Care and Support’ to provide care and facilities for the most disadvantaged people in our society. It is an area of work which often doesn’t get acknowledged and yet without the commitment of people such as Andrew there would be many more homeless people on the streets. I also believe that this honour will be welcomed by the many staff and volunteers within Alabaré, who provide care in often very difficult circumstances, as a recognition of their work.”
LOCAL RECIPIENTS
There were a couple other people in Salisbury that were recognised in the honours list.
Group Leader at DSTL, James Taylor has been awarded with an OBE.
Mr Taylor lives in Salisbury and was given the honour for services to the NHS during Covid-19.
Meanwhile, another Salisbury resident will receive an MBE.
Professor Hywel Morgan, Professor of Bioelectronics at the University of Southampton, has been recognised for services to Biomedical Engineering particularly during Covid-19.
They join people like footballer Marcus Rashford in the honours, which you can see the full list of on the gov.uk website.