It was a special night to honour a company’s stars as well as celebrate notable achievements during 2023.
Reading Buses held their annual Night with the Stars event at the Hilton Hotel, Kennet Island, Reading, for the third time.
And crowned Star of the Year, from those named overall driving, engineering and support stars, was Simon Gold, who was honoured for his tireless work behind the scenes on the company’s systems and his excellent project management of the rollout of the tap on, tap off system.
In addition to Simon who was initially also named as Support Star winner, honours also went to new Engineering Star Milan Gurung whose win was for his calm and unflappable manner working in the company’s parts store – he also completed an apprenticeship this year as well as taking on more responsibility in his role.
Driving Star Stuart Pritchard won for providing consistently detailed and constructive reports and feedback of his observations and experiences while out driving to help make improvements and changes for the benefit of all. He has been praised by his managers as being consistently excellent in all aspects of his role.
The company also recognised Simon Wong, crowned Customer Champion, Toby Yapp, Community Hero, Stuart Kirby, Charity Champion and Simon Gard, Rising Star.
Said Robert Williams, Reading Buses’ Chief Executive Officer: “The celebration also includes retirees, long service awards, stars of the month, Going the Extra Mile winners, employees earning qualifications, those who have garnered external recognition, done great things for charity, generated the most customer compliments, and our drivers with the best DriveWell telematics scores.”
This year the company had a special guest compere, the voice of onboard bus announcements and radio personality David Sheppard.
A raffle raised over £1,000 for Charity of the Year Royal Berks Charity. The amount included a huge £200 donation from driver Chris van Niekirk and £100 from the winner of the cash prize in the raffle, Ray Newman, who immediately donated the money to the charity.