A Royal Afternoon Tea at Buckingham Palace

An incredible ‘bucket list’ experience was enjoyed yesterday by two Kids Inspire volunteers

Back in June 2020 our team of volunteers were awarded a QAVS (Queens Award for Voluntary Service) award – The MBE for Volunteers. The QAVS presentation ceremony was held at Hargrave House a year later in June 2021, where the Lord Lieutenant for Essex, Jennifer Tolhurst, presented Kids Inspire Volunteers with the award they had received a year earlier.

Yesterday, two of our outstanding volunteers, Sue King and Martyn Mead, visited Buckingham Palace to celebrate at the second Garden Party of the year following an invite from the Lord Lieutenant. In their words, it was a “once in a lifetime experience to represent the Kids Inspire volunteer team at the Palace.” Read on to hear more from them both…

“It felt a surreal experience, but I know it happened as I have some photos to prove it!” Sue King told us just hours after returning from the Palace. Sue has volunteered and mentored since the early days of Kids Inspire and is a regular supporter of fundraising social events for the charity too.

She went on to tell us more about the official event, which saw 8,000 guests invited to enjoy royal hospitality at the Palace: “The afternoon was hosted by the Duchess of Cambridge, the Earl and Countess of Wessex and also Princess Alexandra.  There were two military bands and lots of pomp and ceremony.

“It was a simply magical afternoon.  The gardens were beautiful and so much bigger than I had imagined.  The food was amazing, and just to be sure we visited twice before the trays of ice cream were brought out!

Honestly, I would never have dreamt of having this on my bucket list so it will be a memory I will treasure forever.”

Martyn Mead has volunteered for Kids Inspire since he retired late January 2020. He has clocked up a large number of hours looking after the gardens and grounds at Hargave House each week (including throughout lockdown!) He is a trained volunteer mentor too, which he does alongside his many other volunteer commitments.

Martyn’s first thoughts were all about the stunning Palace gardens: “They must have an army of gardeners, the grounds were absolutely immaculate - as you would expect - they have an open supply of manure from the horse guards too!”

Martyn went on to say: “It honestly was such a fabulous day out and I was so proud to represent Kids Inspire with my fellow volunteer and Mentor Sue at The Queens Garden Party for charity supporters and volunteers. I was simply amazed at how big and how lovely the gardens are.

It was a fabulous afternoon and we got lucky and enjoyed some lovely warm sunshine too, thank you so much for the opportunity.”

Thank you to Sue and Martyn, and to all of our army of wonderful volunteers, your work makes a real difference to what we can achieve together.

Learn more about the QAVS journey here.