Latest news
Sellafield Ltd Business Excellence Awards
Sellafield Ltd celebrated the best of the best at the Business Excellence Awards, held at Energus.
George Beveridge, deputy Managing Director for Transformation/Support welcomed the crowd which included those individuals and teams nominated for an award, several members of the Sellafield Ltd executive team and a number of VIP guests, including Workington MP Tony Cunningham, Chairman of the West Cumbria Site Stakeholder Group, David Moore, Gary McKeating from Nuclear Management Partners and Dr Ian Hudson from the NDA.
The spectacular sunset at the Energus facility provided the perfect backdrop to the event celebrating excellence across Sellafield Ltd, which was in stark contrast to the original date booked for the ceremony – which was postponed in November on the day that the worst flooding for a generation hit West Cumbria.
As had been planned in November, Ben Fogle was on hand to act as master of ceremonies, and share with those gathered some of his experiences from his various adventures.
Managing Director, Bill Poulson, was invited to the stage to give an opening address in which he thanked those who had taken time to put forward submissions.
Mr Poulson said “Often we do not take the time to stop to say thank you, so thanks to the nominators who took the time to reflect and put forward submissions and I’d also like to say thanks to families and partners whose support is critical to success. In order to get where we need to be sometimes people have to work long hours or miss the odd weekend at home, and I know that behind all of our award winners tonight is someone who has supported them and been understanding.
“There is a lot of change in front of us – those getting awards are people who see a different future, a better way we can do things and aren’t satisfied with the status quo. The winners tonight are among a select group of people and really are the best of the best. We had over 200 entries from across the business for these awards and so to get to this stage they’ve all done a really great job.”
Each award was then presented by a different director, with Kerry Maxwell, chief executive if Whitehaven Community Trust, on hand to present the community, stakeholders and customer services award.
After dinner Ben Fogle spoke about his time as living on Taransay for 12 months for the BBC’s first ever reality TV show, Castaway.
He then spoke of the determination not to fail which had seen him achieve his greatest challenge to date – rowing across the Atlantic with Olympic gold medallist James Cracknell, setting a British record in the process.
Since that challenge the pair have become close friends and completed a South Pole race last year. They are now preparing to tackle a 3,500 km foot race in Australia.
Fogle said: “I have been to Cumbria many times before but, probably like many tourists I do tend to miss this part of West Cumbria and just visit the Lakes.
“But Sellafield is a pretty iconic name that we all hear about all of our lives and to be part of an awards ceremony celebrating achievements at that site is a great privilege for me.”
During the evening a raffle raised over £1,100 for the flood recovery fund.
***************************************************************************************************
And the winners were:
Apprentice Awards
AEEU Cup: Leeanne Jeffrey
Windscale Cup: Anna Mawson
Len Pearce Trophy: Lee Plaskett
HG Davey Cup: Charlotte Bailey
Trainee of the Year Award: Jade Leonard
Graduate Scheme Award: Sarah Beard
Business Awards
Operations Award: Waste Effluents and Disposition: Work pack improvements
Community, Stakeholders and Customer Service Award: Finance and Business Support: Improvement of Magnox corporate card expenses process
Project Delivery Award: Jonathan Jennings, Decommissioning: Pile 1 electronic decommissioning safety case
Engineering (Maintenance and Design) Award: Julian Kay, Spent Fuel: FME zones and procedures
Technology Award: Waste and Effluent Disposition: Waste oxide incorporation rate optimisation, Waste Vitrification Plants
Mission Support Award: Commercial and Contract Management: Inventory replenishment cost reduction
Working in Partnership Award: Decommissioning: SPP1 – modifying SPP1 buffer
EHS&Q Award: Project Management: Sellafield Product and Residue Store (SPRS): Project health and safety week activities
People’s Choice Award: EHS&Q Flask quality: work management improvements
MD Award: Waste Effluents and Disposition: Work pack improvements
As well as the winners announced on the evening, special mention was given to others who had recently received national recognition. These included David Dunn, Robert Astall and Victoria Martin, who just last month was named Foundation Student of the Year.
