SIV Employee Rewarded for Going the Extra Mile

21st July 2014

An employee from the city's leading leisure operator has been recognised with a prestigious company award for his dedication to helping the community he works with.

Rob Evans, who works at Ponds Forge International Sports Centre as programme development manager, won the Sheffield City Trust Community Champion accolade at SIV's annual awards ceremony. The award is designed to recognise an employee, manager or staff member who had made a difference to their community in Sheffield. Rob, aged 43, has been heavily involved within the local community for a number of years, working across various city wide and national projects, offering his time to volunteer as a coach at a local junior football team at Ridgeway and encouraging people to get involved with SIV's activities. Rob, who lives in Ridgeway, said: -I was very surprised to receive the award, I was not expecting it at all but of course I was very pleased. It's great to know that the work I have been doing is having a positive effect and helping people. Rob is involved in schemes including 'Give and Gain', which encourages employees to volunteer within the community in their own time, and 'Right to Read', which sees staff members taking one hour a week to go into schools and listen to children read. Rob said: -We began the Right to Read project because research highlighted that some children were leaving primary school with poor reading skills and were therefore struggling at secondary school. The charity helps these children who may not have the chance to read at home or whose first language is not English to develop in this area. On top of all of his current projects, volunteering and daily work of organising Ponds Forge's vast programme of sporting activities, Rob still has big plans for future projects in the community. He added: -We plan to do a lot of work around the health of the people of Sheffield. We are currently working with the Move More project, which is a city-wide scheme encouraging people to be physically active and making sure they are better informed about what facilities are available to them. Steve Brailey, chief executive of SIV, which is the operating arm of the charity, Sheffield City Trust, said: -Rob is a real asset to the company for all of his hard work and effort put into working within the Sheffield community. He is very generous with his time and energies and is a worthy winner of this award. -At SIV we are committed to ensuring the people of Sheffield and beyond have access to facilities to improve their health and wellbeing, having a positive impact on their lives. People like Rob who are dedicated to reaching out to local people help us to achieve this goal. Other winners at the annual awards ceremony, which took place at Ponds Forge, were Sheffield City Hall, which scooped Venue of the Year, Ben Wild from the English Institute of Sport Sheffield, who took home the Sales Person of the Year title and Customer Contact Centre for Team of the Year. Business Partner of the Year went to joint winners Central Leisure Services and Technogym, Paul Child, catering manager at the English Institute of Sport Sheffield, won Manager of the Year and Stevie Palmer, who works in SIV's membership department, took home the Employee of the Year accolade.