DofE Gold Awards July 6th

Yet another event highlighting the finer qualities of the youth of Hampshire, the annual Duke of Edinburgh’s Scheme Gold Award ceremony was held at the Great hall in Winchester.

The Lord Lieutenant of Hampshire, Dame Mary Fagan, presented the certificates to 35 young people who had undertaken the tasks involved in the scheme and had worked their way through the Bronze and Silver standard to reach the final award of the Gold certificate.

As part of their tasks, many of them had worked abroad on humanitarian projects while others had done similar things in this country. On the personal side many had undertaken strenuous challenges, with one young man, Charles Campbell, presenting, during an interval, an illustrated talk on his cycle ride from Land’s End to John O’ Groats via the three highest mountain peaks in the UK!

One family were represented by four sisters, all receiving Gold Awards, while their father received a certificate on attaining the highest level for training scheme participants!

In all there were 95 young people invited to receive their certificates, but many of them were away at University and were unable to attend.

During the first of two intervals we were entertained by a highly talented  group of singers, the Coasters Quartet, from Ditcham Park School.