Thanks to John Briggs for 50 years of NHS volunteering!
John Briggs, stalwart of Ripley Hospital’s League of Friends, was honoured for 50 years of volunteering service at the league’s 2024 annual general meeting in October.
It marked a remarkable half-century since John first accepted the voluntary unpaid role as league treasurer, and in all that time he has served with an unshaken commitment, even organising his holidays around committee meetings.
John retired from his professional role in accountancy for the Cooperative in 2007 but has no plans to step back from his volunteering role and remains strongly attached to Ripley Hospital and the League of Friends, as just “part of what I do”.
In the past 24 years alone the league has funded improvement projects at Ripley Hospital totalling well over £2 million…. £2,165,570 to be precise, as a treasurer must be! His professional acumen has been very much in demand over the years.
At the league’s AGM, on 17 October, John was presented with a cake, a gardening voucher and thank-you card from the league’s committee and members. Mel Curd, associate director of corporate governance for Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the services at Ripley Hospital, attended on behalf of the Trust Board to present the hospital report and thank the league. Mel presented John with a framed long service certificate and with a bouquet of flowers for John’s wife Pam.
John is pictured cutting the cake with other members of the league’s committee: Phyllis Holmes, Brian Wright and Jane Barnett, and in a separate photo with his wife Pam Briggs. The framed certificate quotes Martin Luther King’s line: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others?” The dedicated volunteers who give their time and energy freely to enhance the comfort of local NHS services can answer that resoundingly. Thank you John and thank you to all at Ripley Hospital’s League of Friends.
You can read more about John’s remarkable volunteering commitment to the league and to the local Ripley community where he has lived all his life: John’s incredible 50 years of voluntary service for Ripley Hospital.