Congratulations to the former Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority (YDNPA) volunteers' co-ordinator Rae Lonsdale, who has been made an MBE in the New Year Honours List for his voluntary service in North Yorkshire.

Rae has also raised the profile of the John Muir Award in the Yorkshire Dales and has been instrumental in running the Award with YDNPA staff and Dales volunteers, particularly with Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Conservation Residentials.

Rae said: “My immediate thought when they told me was that things like this don’t happen to people like me. It’s just a shame that there are so many other people volunteering in the Dales who only get local recognition.

“I just want to continue to encourage young people into environmental volunteering through the John Muir Award.”

The nomination for the honour referred in some detail to the development of volunteering for the YDNPA, during his tenure as volunteers co-ordinator – doubling the number of volunteers and trebling the amount of time given by volunteers – but it also included his own volunteering.  Rae was a volunteer in the National Park’s Voluntary Warden Service from February 1967 and before working for the Authority, he worked for Lancashire County Council as a countryside ranger, a role which required him to supervise their volunteers.

He has been a long-standing volunteer with the Cave Rescue Organisation based at Clapham and has had a number of key roles with it. In addition, he was on the Yorkshire Dales Duke of Edinburgh’s Award Expedition Panel in the Dales from 1976 to 1979 and re-joined as an accredited assessor from 1996 to 2010.

John Muir Award manager Rob Bushby congratulated Rae saying, “We’ve really valued Rae’s enthusiastic support. Combining volunteering, the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, John Muir Award and YDNP activity has been a fantastic example of partnership working in action. Long may it continue!”