Celebration for Jean as She Steps Down as Chair of 404

On Thursday 2nd September Centre 404 arranged a very special evening for our Chair Jean Willson OBE after our AGM business meeting for 2021. This celebration was to thank her for 50+ years of support and involvement at Centre 404.

After 10 years in her current role (and third time being the Chair), Jean is now stepping down as Chair and is stepping into a new ambassadorial role of President for Centre 404. Paul Formosa, Vice-Chair, will be taking over as Acting Chair for 2021/2022.

We would like to thank Jean for all her remarkable work over the years 🙏🎉🤗

Also thank you to all our trustees as well as guests, staff and volunteers that helped make this a success. Please keep a look out for our bigger AGM party next year for Centre 404’s 70th birthday! 🎉👀

Quotes about Jean

Read CEO Linda McGowan’ s tribute to Jean here.

From learning disabled members of our Gardening Group:

“Always something special working with Jean in the garden!”

From a family carer:

“What a wonderful role model and campaigner, you are an inspirational woman who fights our corner.”

From our patron Jeremy Corbyn who was there and made a speech, which included:

“Jean changed the face and gave a voice for all those people with  learning disabilities and their family carers in the borough. I have always been impressed with work of Centre 404”

 

Please see Jeremy’s full speech below as was as Jean’s speech:

We would also like to give a huge thank you to @ninasbakery who supplied us with a beautiful frosted rainbow cake and 60 cupcakes, including vegan and gluten free!

They gave us a generous charity discount, which helped make our amazing party for our Chair Jean Willson OBE a success!

We are a big fans of community partnerships and love when local businesses are willing to support local charities and vice versa. 10 out of 10 will recommend in the future.