A 'below the surface' look at our awards ceremonies...

Tonight's the night! The first of our primary Gold award ceremonies will take place in the City Hall Ballroom so it's time to to roll out the red carpet, ready to welcome our fantastic award winners and their families! 

As a team, we often get queries about the award ceremonies, how they work, and why they are as they are! We know that many people are unaware just what goes in to making them happen so we wanted to give you an insight behind the scenes. 

Of course, it would be wonderful if it all just came together in a short period of time but in reality, it take months of planning! So we want to take this opportunity to share the process with you, using an iceberg to help explain that what you see is far from the whole picture!

Introducing our new Sheffield CU Patron...

We are delighted to announce our brand new Sheffield CU Patron!

Chris Brailsford will take up this role and is very excited to be attending one of our Award Ceremonies this week as his first official engagement.

Chris comes from the Parson Cross area of Sheffield so already has a connection to many of our Sheffield CU members and their families. From an early age his passion was for English. Initially, he trained as a teacher, sharing this passion with many pupils over the years, something which he still does today. He particularly loves Shakespeare, poetry and storytelling and it was this that led Sheffield CU to Chris – our very own Helen was lucky enough to be taught a few English lessons in school by Chris, and those lessons inspired her to share this love of English ever since.

Chris is keen to share this story of ‘learning in his own time’, just like all our CU members. Later on in life, by now working in the Council's Housing Dept., he decided to do an evening course in drama, and this extra learning led him to his other passion, acting! Whilst Chris is keen to remind people that he is no ‘Hollywood superstar’, he has appeared on popular TV shows and in films but also on our very own Crucible stage too!

Chris said ‘I’m really inspired by the works of Sheffield CU and by all the fantastic children and young people in Sheffield. They are putting in the extra time and effort to learn more about something they love, and that’s a brilliant attitude to have.’