When Phil Street, Manager of Young Solutions, was asked by a member of Broadway Youth Club management committee attending a presentation to Betty Phillips M.B.E. ‘Just how many plaques has Young Solutions presented to volunteers?’ He replied ‘This is the first’. The presentation of a plaque to Betty was a quite remarkable event for a remarkable volunteer. Betty Phillips volunteering at Broadway Youth Club has spanned three generations.

There are young people attending now who have grandparents who were members of the club Betty leads. Back in 1973, Betty Phillips was amongst those who founded the club and since that time she has been ever present. The club opens every Thursday evening and Betty has been at nearly all of the sessions, about 2000 sessions in all.  Her achievements are staggering and she shows no signs of slowing down. One of her co-workers said ‘if it was left to Betty we’d be open every night’. Despite being amongst the greats when it comes to volunteering, Betty Phillips is unassuming, modest and simply wants to get on with running the youth club.

At the presentation Phil Street said he knows Betty has been rightly recognised by the Queen, having been awarded the M.B.E. but he said the recognition she receives from her community has to rank alongside that award. There will be hundreds, if not thousands, of young people and their families in Broadway who will thank Betty for the opportunities she has created. It was said by someone attending the presentation that Betty not only gives of her time, but is generous with her own resources too. They said the club had been through some difficult times and they had known Betty, more than once, pay out of her own pocket for the refreshments provided at the club. Betty was asked if there had been occasions when she had felt like quitting or on some cold rainy evenings had wanted to stay at home and watch the television rather than open the club. In her own inimitable way she said that she couldn’t as this would let the young people down. Broadway and the volunteering community more widely have much to appreciate in Betty Phillips M.B.E.