A New Year's Honour
Here's a lovely surprise to start my year - I've been awarded a British Empire Medal in the 2025 New Year's Honours List, 'For services to Heritage Preservation in Hong Kong':
I first heard about it in early December, when I received an email saying I'd receive good news if I called a certain Hong Kong mobile number. It looked to have come from the British Consulate in Hong Kong, but I just thought 'The spammers are getting really sophisticated these days', and deleted it! The next day I was contacted with similar messages via Facebook and Gwulo.com, and luckily I did call, and it was good news!
The UK Government website gives this explanation of the BEM:
British Empire Medal (BEM)
Achievement or contribution of a very “hands-on” service to the community in a local geographical area.This might take the form of sustained commitment in support of very local charitable and/or voluntary activity; or innovative work that has delivered real impact but that is relatively short (three to four years) in duration.
Presentations of BEMs are made locally.
Thank you to all the contributors who have given their time and research to Gwulo. This award recognises all our work that has gone into building Gwulo into the resource that it has become.
Wishing you all the best for the new year ahead,
David
P.S. I was asked who nominated me for this. I don't know, but a very big thank you to them. (I like to think the nomination happened after King Charles was reminiscing about visiting Hong Kong, and found us after googling for family photos ...)
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