Yes Provan Awards Ceremony

The Yes Provan Awards Ceremony was held on Friday 19th December at Carntyne and Riddrie Credit Union. The Ceremony was put together and presented by Anne McLaughlin, on the left of most pictures. Awards were presented by either Humza Yousaf MSP or leading Yes campaigner and birthday girl, Amanda Shields. Everyone else pictured is an award recipient.

Allan Casey is the winner of the Bob the Builder Award for Services to Manly Stuff!
(Allan as well as campaigning non stop, is a joiner (a tough looking joiner according to one journalist and much to our amusement). He fitted out the Yes shop for us to an extremely high standard and basically fixed anything that needed fixing. He was also pretty good at driving the Ayes Cream Van!_

Cath Ferguson and Derek Wilson win the 'P*** Artist Awards for Services to Pavement Art Whilst under the Influence (they were painting Yes signs and chose the pavement as their base!

Fraser Leith wins The Last Penny Award for Services to Saving Every Last One! (He kept such a great watch on our finances we were able to donate nearly £500 to foodbanks at the end of the campaign)

Garry MacDonald wins 'Allo Allo Award for Services to Comedy' Garry starred in a French News Broadcast - see it here!

Gazala Akram was nominated by her niece and nephew for the Award for OCD Applied to Newspaper Folding. (She cracked the whip with the wee ones to make sure the Yes newspapers were folded exactly right!)

Graham Campbell was not only a great campaigner for Yes Provan and Africans for Indy but he is the partner of Anne McLaughlin (Left) one of our Co-ordinators. So he got the Dennis Thatcher Award for Putting up with Anne!

John Allan got the Award for the Best Response to a No Voter. Allan Casey (2nd from right) recounted how a No Voter shouted across to John, 'you're English and you're voting Yes?' to which John replied in his Wigan accent 'I might be English but I'm not ****ing Stupid!'

Ken Taylor (along with his team Bill Davidson and Lillian Blanco) won the Award for Indefatigability in the Face of 100,000 Yes Papers to Deliver. (Ken lead a team of retired members who originally went out every morning, building up to every morning AND afternoon and eventually adding on a few nights a week too! )

Paul Burns pictured is picking up the Best Legs Award for which he nominated Mark Coburn aka Indycylist. Mark cycled round Europe to raise money for the Yes campaign. When he got back he spotted lots of local groups with not enough money so he cycled round Scotland to rasie more. He gave us £500. Then he came out night after night to campaign with us. Always in cycling shorts, thus the Best Legs!

Martin Monaghan, also convener of Cabbies for Yes, wins the Spielberg Award for
In Yer Face Filming and Photography in a Real Life Documentary Situation!
(We have fantastic documentation as a result.)

Mary McCabe wins the Lone Ranger Award for Indefatigability in the Face of Missing Activists. (A handful of us started campaigning regularly early in 2013 but sometimes the only person who turned up was the organiser. Mary was one of them and one day, when nobody turned up, she leafleted tenements alone for 3 hours!! All she got as thanks was the flu!)

Sheena Stephen won the Bridging the Gap Award for Keeping Everyone Happy!
(Sheena lives on the border of Provan and Springburn and both teams were vying for her help. So she split her time between both constituencies which meant she barely had a minute to herself.)

The Best Losers Award for Indefatigability in the Face of a No Vote went to (L to R)
Kevin Peden, Chris Crawford, Anne McLaughlin, David Houston, Michelle Leonard, Amanda Shields & Mhairi Love
who, along with others, since losing the vote, have organised 3 car cavalcades, 3 public meetings, 3 organising meetings, 8 leafleting sessions, 6 street stalls!!!

The Coolest Team Award went to these guys who from January 2014 campaigned EVERY Wednesday night. Because of their enthusiasm the numbers built up and we often had 15 plus out campaigning on a Wednesday because people knew it would be fun. This core team of Wednesday Warriors set the tone for the campaign that lead to us recruiting massive numbers of activists and securing the highest Yes majority in Glasgow. They are, L to R
John Allan, Martin Monaghan, Louisa Graham, Cath Ferguson, Allan Casey, Anne MClaughlin,
Gazala Akram, Amanda Shields and Graham Campbell

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Willie Douglas lives and campaigns in the Pollok Constituency and still, for two years, he also campaigned in Provan. We recognised him and  respected actress Alison Peebles also from the Southside, also very active in our campaign in the East End with the Rough Guide to the East End Award for crossing the city 

Normally folk from the West End get the shakes if they leave and head to the East of the city! Louisa Graham got fed up waiting for a chance to campaign in her native West End and walked to Dennistoun one cold dark January night. She must've liked us because she carried on doing it all year upping it to 2 days a week. Louisa shares the award with Joe Brady who couldn't be with us but is another worthy winner. Joe is a fellow Westender and he got involved a little later in the campaign - a month before the referendum. But when he got involved, he really did. He travelled over EVERY single DAY for that month and definitely deserves the award.