20 August 2007
Dragon Awards 2007 judge profile: Martyn Lewis CBE
For the past 15 years Martyn Lewis has been a judge for the Lord
Mayor’s Dragon Awards, established to recognise and celebrate
excellence in Corporate Community Involvement by rewarding the
innovative work of companies and public offices in social and
economic regeneration of their local communities – across the whole
of London.
In over 32 years as a TV journalist, Martyn Lewis has built up a
reputation as one of Britain's best known TV anchormen and
reporters. In 1994, Martyn made the news himself with two
controversial and widely-debated speeches arguing for a shift in
the agenda of TV news programmes to achieve a fairer balance
between the positive and the negative, in order to report and
analyse achievement just as much as failure and disaster.
He says, “The Dragon Awards are an example of some fantastic
press stories which don’t get enough media attention. Rather than
focusing on negative representations of our community and society,
it’s important to remind people about the positive impact that they
can have, and for businesses to encourage their staff to get
involved and show how they can make worthwhile changes in their
community.”
His charitable work includes the Chairmanship of YouthNet UK, a
charity he founded in 1995 to create a comprehensive internet site
signposting 16-24 year-olds to every conceivable opportunity or
form of help they might need (www.thesite.org). It has over 16,000
organisations on its database, stretching right down to community
level across the UK, and is accessed by over half a million young
people every month. YouthNet has also created the
personalized advice service www.askthesite.org, and the UK’s national
volunteering database - www.do-it.org.uk, listing and regularly
updating some 700,000 volunteering opportunities available across
the UK.
In 2005 Martyn was invited to become Chairman of the Beacon
Fellowship Trust, a charity set up to encourage individual
contributions to charitable and social causes and to celebrate and
showcase best practice in giving.
(www.beaconfellowship.org.uk) Their awards have
been described by the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, as ‘the Nobel
prizes of the charity world’.
He has been closely involved with the Hospice movement for over
20 years, and is a Vice-President of the three main national
hospice charities – Help The Hospices, Marie Curie Cancer Care and
Macmillan Cancer Relief – as well as many individual
hospices.
Other charity involvement includes : President of United Response,
providing homes and work in the community for people with learning
disabilities, a Trustee of the Windsor Leadership Trust, helping
develop the leaders of tomorrow, as well as a regular judge for the
Lord Mayor’s Dragon Awards, honouring companies based in the City
of London for their work in helping the community.
He points out,
“It’s so stimulating and energizing to read through the
applications for the Dragon Awards, these businesses illustrate to
others what is very easily achievable and provide a tremendous
example of Corporate Community Involvement which is making a real
difference.
First established in 1986 by the then Lord Mayor Sir David
Rowe-Ham, the Dragon Awards invite companies and public offices
across London to submit entries and community partners may nominate
business and public office projects falling within the categories
of Education, Economic Regeneration, Community & Social
Inclusion, Heart of the City and the Lord Mayor’s Award.
For more information about the Dragon Awards, visit
www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/dragonawards.
The 2007 Dragon Awards dinner will be held on 10 October.
Ends
Notes to editors
Martyn Lewis holds an honorary Doctor of Letters from the
University of Ulster and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
and a Member of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. He
was awarded a CBE in the Prime Minister’s Honours list of 1997.
The City of London Corporation is the elected business authority
for London's world-leading Square Mile business district. As well
as promoting the UK-based financial services industry both abroad
and in the UK, it provides local authority services in the Square
Mile City of London geographical area - and offers many other
services to London and the wider nation. Its elected members are
non-party political and it works with others London authorities and
City firms in many partnership and regeneration projects.
For more information or to arrange an interview, please
contact:
Rosalind Jeffcoat or Louise Ambridge
Rain Communications UK
Tel: 020 7222 4345
Email:
name.surname@raincommunications.co.uk