Lorraine Gray – Leadership award nomination 2006

Lorraine Gray has been with The Academy
since 1991, when she joined as a performing
member. As a member Lorraine was always
very active in helping the others around her,
especially when they were struggling with
learning something, or even just to give them
motivation and encouragement. She was
always very reliable, never missed rehearsals,
and more importantly she never missed a
fundraising function or event. Her parents
were loyally involved with The Academy
and still to this day are. In 1999 Lorraine ‘aged out' which meant she was too old to be a performer, and has stayed on as a staff member ever since.

As a staff member she is invaluable, but this isn't her biggest asset to The Academy. Since I took on the role of Director back in 2003, Lorraine has worked as my assistant, on top of her full time job in London . Taking on the role of treasurer on the management committee, she deals with all our accounts and funds and works tirelessly to make sure they are updated constantly and that we always have an up to date budget available. This has really helped us keep on track financially and manage our funding effectively. On top of this Lorraine also does most of the administration work and logistical work for The Academy. Making sure members and parents have regular news letters to inform them of relevant information, making sure coaches are booked, accommodation for continental contests, halls for functions, trucks are available to move scenery around from rehearsal venues and show sites etc, to list but a few. Lorraine is probably the most organized person I know, and without her on board The Academy simply would not function properly! This has been her job for 3 years now and she keeps the director, all the management committee and the staff all on their toes, not to mention the members!!!!!!

As well as this Lorraine teaches two or our 3 guards full time. On Saturdays she works with our expanding junior group, teaching them new skills gradually as they develop. Teaching an age range of 7-10year olds is no easy feat. These kids will remember things one day and forget the next week, they take a long time to remember routines, they are very active and need to be taught how to be taught, all this takes great patience. But she perseveres week after week, in between all the organizing she does for the groups. On Sundays and some Saturday evenings she also helps to teach the senior group. This large group is pushing to very top levels in the activity and teaching them requires a completely different technique and level of knowledge. These members aged 13-23year are like sponges for information; they have trained for years and know what they need to know to master a skill. Teaching at this level requires an immense amount of knowledge, something Lorraine acquired during her years as a performing member. However having last performed in 1999 Lorraine was keen to keep afloat with new skills and techniques since ‘ageing out' and has done this out of teaching time, making sure her knowledge is always up to date to help the members.

Lorraine is also known within the organization as a keen fundraiser. Just recently she helped organize and participated in a sponsored climb of mount Snowdon . Some £2000 was made for The Academy and Cancer research, and Lorraine single handedly raised almost half that total amount in sponsors herself. If we ever do competitions for how much people can raise, its always Lorraine ! She sells the most raffle tickets, does the most boot sales, sells the most animated snails for snail racing nights!!!!! This is a great motivation for the young members as they all try to beat her and sell more than her, she's a great inspiration for the members.

So I would say Lorraine deserves this award because she is involved in the organization in so many ways, she teaches at various levels, she motivates the members, she raises money tirelessly for the group and she does all the work behind the scenes that the members don't even know happens to keep the organization afloat! And she does all that voluntary on top of studying and a full time job. She's a massive asset to the group.