The first recipient of a free lunch courtesy of the Times’ Community Hero awards has tucked into a tasty meal thanks to The Impero Lounge in Portishead.

North Somerset Times:

Sandy Tebbutt’s passion for local history and flowers has blossomed in Portishead and has made community life in the town all the richer for it. She moved to Portishead with her young family 40 years ago and has since taken on a wide range of differing roles with boundless energy and enthusiasm.

Sandy, who lives in Nore Road, has for many years been a stalwart of the Gordano Civic Society, a thriving local group involved with history, conservation, environment, planning and wildlife issues facing the Gordano area of North Somerset.

As a noted local historian and society secretary she has delivered dozens of lectures to local community groups and also finds time to edit Posset Pieces, a fascinating twice yearly booklet on local history which will publish its 21st edition later this year.

Intriguing titles of past editions include Dame Clara Butt: Commander of the British Empire; Princess Christian of Schleswig Holstein; George Fox, Founder of the Quaker Movement and The Artist James Whistler – His time in Portishead.

But Sandy, who has a husband Mike, four children and two grandchildren, is well-known as the energetic head of Portishead in Bloom and has led a team of community volunteers to national Britain in Bloom prominence.

Such has been its success that it is now in the champion of champions class having scooped 13 national gold awards and nine South West in Bloom accolades.

She said: “Our success can be attributed not only to the huge commitment and dedication of our local volunteers but also to the tremendous support we receive both from Portishead Town Council and North Somerset Council.”

Impero host for the lunch Hayley Lang said it had been a great pleasure to host a special thank you lunch for her.

Times editor Tom Wright said: “We have had a lot of deserving recommendations so far and look forward to working with Impero on rewarding those people in the coming weeks and months.

“But, it became quickly apparent when I started covering Portishead in 2015 how much work Sandy puts into the community and she immediately leapt out as the most-deserving first person to win a meal.

“Portishead is a wonderful town; it has many people who give up a lot of free time to make it successful and Sandy is one of those who is at the heart of a lot of the fantastic things which we can too often take for granted.”