Personal thanks from Mark Hopwood of Great Western Railway

[whole diary]

[Chris from Nailsea]

From my e-mail this evening:

Dear Chris
 
As 2016 draws to a close, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to personally thank you for your valued contribution as a volunteer on the Great Western network. 
 
Great Western Railway, our Community Rail Partnerships and volunteers were awarded the highest accolade at this year’s ACoRP^▸ (Association of Community Rail Partnerships) Community Rail Awards. It was an honour to collect the Overall Winners Award on behalf of everyone involved with our five Community Rail Partnerships and to celebrate our joint achievements over the past 12 months.
 
There is no doubt that the work you do really does make a difference, and that the increasing number of passengers on our community rail lines really do appreciate all you do. Stations along the line are looking better each year, and that’s down to your hard work and dedication.
 
To show how much we appreciate your help I would like to send you two standard class tickets that you can use on any GWR^▸ (Great Western Railway) service within the next 12 months. Please can you reply to this email to let us know what address we should send the tickets to?
 
We really are very grateful for everything that you do. Our army of volunteers are remarkable, appreciated by us, and more importantly, appreciated by our customers.
 
Thank you and best wishes

Mark Hopwood
Managing Director

I felt somewhat embarrassed at receiving such thanks, as I'm not particularly active on the front line of any particular Community Rail Partnership these days, and I wondered whether anyone else has received such an e-mail? 

[grahame]

Nice.

Two points if I may ...

* There's far more ways to volunteer and support the partnership of passengers and providers.  Being an admin here - and having spent longer on line than any of the rest of us, for example.

* Volunteers are the lifeblood of community (small c) rail and I totally agree with Mark's letter and sentiment.  The co-ordinators and administrators of Community (large C) Rail Partnerships mostly put in huge amounts of time and receive at least some compensation for some of it, so I wouldn't expect them to be part of Mark's thanks to volunteers.   And I would like to add my thanks to volunteers too ... without that support, so much wouldn't be possible.

[trainer]

Dear Chris...

We really are very grateful for everything that you do. Our army of volunteers are remarkable,[and] appreciated by us...

I'm sure I would echo those sentiments for all the work done on here, as Graham has so eloquently written above.