Our third Party Award features Thay Thayalan, former Mayor of Kingston, who won the President’s Award at this year’s Conference. Watch the whole Party Awards segment below and read the full submission in support of Thay under the cut.

* Long standing commitment to anti-racism and equalities issues both in the community as well as now on the Council
* Founding member of Kingston Racial Equality Council (KREC)
* Has been Chair of KREC and on its Board for many years
* Has a real problem-solving and can do attitude
* Has helped bring the sometimes disparate parts of the community together in one organisation * Has worked extensively with the local Police on their awareness and handling of race issues
* Is a strong campaigner for peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka and in justice for the Sri Lankan Tamil population both in Sri Lanka and in the UK
* Part of Ward team in Tolworth with an amazing track record of campaigning, casework and winning
* Mayor of Kingston 2018-19, where he attended over 600 events in his Mayoral year and raised thousands of £’s for charity
* Worked hard along with the local party and MP to diversify our Membership and Councillor base, with good success – the Group of 38 Councillors now broadly represents the demographic of our local population
* The key additional piece of work this year in particular has been around his role coordinating the response to Covid in his local area
* Has made phonecalls to hundreds of Ward residents to see if they are ok or need anything
* Most significantly he has recruited and coordinated a whole local network of food bank ‘street champions’
* They have a box for food bank donations outside their home on particular days
* Thay advertises this and then visits them all to collect all the food after each session, and then takes it to the food bank itself and helps to sort it
* Additionally he makes use of his relationship with a number of community organisations to further recruit volunteers for the wider food collection and distribution effort
* His efforts have formed a key part of the local Covid response, keeping the wheels turning on getting vulnerable residents the support they need – and bringing in additional volunteers as well as building public awareness of and enthusiasm for supporting the food bank in general.

By the way, Mark Pack did not pronounce Thay’s name correctly – it should sound like “tie”.