On Air at BBC Radio Oxford

The alarm went off painfully early this morning, but it was for the best of reasons. By 7am I was on Banbury Road, heading into the BBC studios in Oxford to join Sophie Law on her breakfast show and talk about something very close to my heart – the High Sheriff’s Awards.

There’s a particular buzz about being in a radio studio first thing, when most people are still on their first cup of tea. Sophie and the team were wonderfully welcoming, and it was a joy to sit down with her to chat about the people who quietly keep Oxfordshire going – the neighbours who check in on someone living alone, the volunteer who turns up week after week, the youth worker who never stops believing in the potential of the young people around them.

We talked about how the High Sheriff’s Awards are one of the ways we can say a proper “thank you” to those community champions who rarely seek the spotlight. I tried to get one simple message across: if someone you know makes life better for others, don’t assume “someone else” will nominate them. That “someone else” is you.

As ever, my theme this year is Hearing the Young Unheard, so I am especially keen to see nominations for young people, and for those who work alongside them. But whoever they are, wherever they live in Oxfordshire, if they quietly go the extra mile, I would love to hear about them.

If you’d like to find out more – or nominate someone who deserves a moment of recognition – the link is right there on the main menu of this website. It only takes a few minutes, and it might just mean the world to the person you put forward.