In the Queen’s New Year’s Honours list for 2007 Lewis Kent was awarded an M. B. E. for his service to young people at the Oakley Holidays. The M.B.E. (Member of the British Empire) awards are presented each year by the Queen to a range of people from all over the country who have shown service and commitment, often over many years and usually unpaid, to charities, voluntary groups and local community projects.

Lewis attended his first Oakley Holiday in 1965 whilst a sixth form student at George Dixon GS in Birmingham. He continued to serve the Holidays as a leader whilst training as a primary school teacher at St. Luke’s College, Exeter. Throughout his teaching career Lewis has attended the holidays and the annual conferences for leaders, firstly at Oakley Hall in Cirencester, then at Foremarke Hall and Repton School in Derbyshire and now at Bilton Grange near Rugby.

He took over the responsibility for managing the finances of the Oakley Holidays in 1984 and was officially appointed as our Treasurer when Oakley Holidays became a charity and a limited company in 2002.

For several years in the 1990s Lewis and his wife, Beverley, took on the catering for the weekend conference for leaders, then held at Wadderton near Birmingham. In recent times Lewis has introduced over 20 new boys and girls from the Portsmouth area to the holidays and at Easter 2007 he will again be at Bilton Grange on his 108th holiday.

Lewis was nominated for a Queen’s Honour by the Chairman of the Oakley Trustees, Peter Downes, with five other members of the board of Trustees writing letters of support. The lengthy consideration process took fourteen months, but everyone was delighted with the announcement on December 30th, 2006.

Lewis will be invested with his MBE by the Queen at a special ceremony at Buckingham Palace in May 2007. All Oakley members, past and present, send their congratulations to Lewis on this very well-deserved recognition of his work.