Local Face: Liz Youens, MBE

Liz Youens has been collecting certificates all her life, having gained her adult swimming certificate in 1979, when she learned to swim. By May 1981 she was awarded her Swimming Teaching Certificate. Friday 9 October 2020 brought her a different scale of certificate: an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, delayed from June due to the Coronavirus Pandemic.

An MBE is awarded for an outstanding achievement or service to the community. This will have had a long-term, significant impact and stand out as an example to others. Elizabeth Anne Youens was given this award for voluntary service to swimming in Wendover, Buckinghamshire.

The building of the Swimming Pool in Wendover was a huge community effort back in the 1970s. Liz’s children benefitted and that led to Liz becoming a stalwart, starting with admin reception work but then going on to learn to swim herself, becoming a swimming teacher and then a lifeguard.

She didn’t stop there, though, going on to become a teacher of lifeguarding, not to mention teaching diving at Green Park Sub- Aqua Club, currently their longest standing member. To read more about Liz, go to https://wendovernews.co.uk/news/localface-liz-youens/.

Liz has given so much of her mature adult life to Wendover Swimming Pool that she really deserved this honour. Without her hours of volunteer work, Wendover would not have its Pool. Liz’s role has always been to make sure that the Pool functioned on a daily basis. She was never a part of the group which struggled against difficult odds to cover the Pool and make sure it continued to function as a top quality resource for everyone in Wendover, residents and workers alike. As part of her daily assistance, with her friend Katrina Larkin, Liz ran the Early Bird sessions six days a week until November 2019.

The Pool recently reopened for lane swimming and shielding swims, as well as children’s swimming lessons. Family/ leisure swims are expected to return soon, Covid permitting. The Pool Trustees took advantage of lockdown to complete a ventilation refit at the Pool in order to both comply with Covid ventilation requirements and deal with airflow issues that have plagued the Pool for some time. To learn more about Wendover Swimming Pool, visit www.wendoverswimmingpool.co.uk/.

Liz and fellow volunteers surprised by photographer Matt Brown at the re-opening of the Pool