Town awards for firefighter and Fair Frome

THIS year’s Frome’s Person of the Year is Jason Collier who successfully led a campaign to stop cuts to Frome’s fire service, while the town’s first ever Group of the Year is Fair Frome, a charity that runs Frome’s food and furniture bank, holds community dining events to ensure everyone gets a meal and campaigns for a fairer town.

The winners of the competitions, run by Frome Times, were chosen by a panel of judges comprised of last year’s winner Rachel Clark, mayor Mark Dorrington and Frome Times editor, Ian Drew. 

Person of the Year Jason Collier is an on-call firefighter who successfully led a campaign to stop cuts to Frome’s fire service.

“It’s a real surprise and privilege to be chosen as Frome’s Person of the Year,” he said. “It was a really important campaign to retain two on-call fire engines 24-hours a day and is something which will save lives and help firefighter safety for years to come. I had fantastic support from local people, groups and councillors, who signed petitions, turned up at meetings and campaigned to stop the cuts and this award is for them as well. Without their fantastic support, the campaign wouldn’t have been possible. It was an important fight, particularly with the town growing so quickly.”

Other nominees for Person of Year were Katy Harris who volunteers for Fair Frome; Pat Mason chair of the Frome Macular Support Group; Lauren May who runs Cornpop Critter Rescue taking in unwanted animals and rehoming them; Charlotte Pidgeon, coordinator of the Frome National Childbirth Trust; and  Alison Rayner who works at Frome Community Hospital as an activities coordinator. 

The new ‘Group of the Year’ went to Fair Frome, a charity that runs Frome’s food and furniture bank, holds community dining events to ensure everyone gets a meal and they also campaign for greater financial, educational, social and health equality in Frome.

Bob Ashford, chair of the trustees said, “We’re absolutely delighted to be chosen as Frome’s Group of the Year, particularly as this is the first year of the award. It’s a reflection of all the fantastic work our volunteers, supporters and staff do throughout the year helping to make Frome a better place to live, particularly for people most in need. This award is a real honour for us and hopefully will help us get the word out to the community about the work we do.”

The other nominee in the ‘Group of the Year’ category was local cancer counselling charity, We Hear You.