31 December 2011 - Our Honorary President Jon Gifford has been duly recognized in the New Year's Honours with the award of the Order of the British Empire. This much deserved award finally gives public recognition of the enormous contribution Jon has made towards the development of NCI over the last 12 years.

 

Running a national Charity is a full-time occupation but Jon has done just that. At the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting in April 2011, he stepped down from being a tireless Chairman of NCI for the previous nine years to become Honorary President of the Charity.

His long and rewarding association with NCI started in 1999 when he became a volunteer watchkeeper at Prawle Point. An increasing involvement with the organization soon led to his election as a Trustee in 2001 and Chairman of NCI in 2002.

At that time, the Charity had little over 700 volunteer watchkeepers manning 23 lookout stations. Today, NCI has some 2000 volunteers in its membership operating 46 stations in England and Wales and this remarkable achievement in terms of the growth and development of NCI is very much down to the personal leadership and drive of Jon himself.

With the unfailing support of his wife Rosemary, he has travelled the length and breadth of the country, much of it at his own cost, in search of prospective new stations to renovate and launch in furtherance of NCI's ever-increasing visual watch capability. Simultaneously, he has devoted much of his time toward strengthening links with HM Coastguard, the RNLI and the UK Border Agency   as well as the National Trust, Councils and landowners on whose land a number of watchstations are situated.

Jon has also proved to be a highly successful fundraiser on behalf of NCI making possible the opening of lookouts some of which have required extensive renovations to bring them up to the standards required for watchkeeping.

 

Commenting on the announcement, Alan Richards, Chairman of NCI, said:

"It is fair to say that practically every aspect of the Charity has benefitted in some way from Jon's shrewd guidance, counsel and management expertise. His outstanding contribution towards the development of NCI has, more than anything else, enabled it to achieve the role it plays today in the UK Search and Rescue organization. On behalf of every member of our Charity, I offer my hearty congratulations to Jon on the award of this prestigious and thoroughly well deserved honour."