Wirral employee named Airbus 'Community Champion'
Unsung Broughton hero rewarded for Champion efforts in the community.
Airbus employee Andy Liston is flying high after being voted the company’s ‘Community Champion’, in recognition of his lifelong commitment to helping others.
For Andy, who lives on the Wirral and works at Airbus in Broughton, volunteering is a way of life. He began fundraising for charity at the age of 12, when his elderly neighbours were diagnosed with terminal cancer, and has never looked back since.
While serving in the Royal Navy he also volunteered as a lifeboatman with the RNLI. After many years of operational work, he has now moved into education, teaching young people about the importance of Sea Safety in local schools.
His lifelong love affair with the sea also inspired Andy to campaign for a fitting memorial, which was unveiled in Birkenhead in 2014, to commemorate the sinking of the troopship HMS Birkenhead during the 19th century. The Mersey maritime disaster was the first recorded application of the ‘women and children first’ lifeboat order, later made famous by the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.
When asked about being named Airbus Community Champion for Broughton, Andy said: “I feel very honoured and at the same time humbled, first of all for being nominated and secondly for being awarded the title of ‘Community Champion’.
“During my 38 years of volunteering, I have always tried to make a difference wherever I am in the world and whatever I have been doing”.
Airbus Community Champions rewards the important contribution Airbus employees make to their local communities, whether through fundraising or active volunteering and involvement. Six employees at the Broughton site were shortlisted for the award but Andy, who was nominated for the award by two of his Airbus colleagues, impressed the judging panel with his longstanding commitment to charity and community work.
The five runners up will receive £75 each for a charity or community project of their choice. Andy will be awarded £500 which he has decided to share between four charities close to his heart: the RNLI, Seafarers UK, the Pebbles Project and Combat Stress.
