ALTON Community Care has bid a fond farewell to Hugh Bethell, who has stood down after 12 years as chairman.

In his farewell speech, Dr Bethell claimed that being chairman was the easiest job in the organisation and Alton Community Care’s success was down to the hard work of all the volunteers who give up their time as drivers and co-ordinators, who answer the phones and allocate the drivers to the clients.

According to an community care spokesman, it was generally agreed that he had been “an inspirational, hands-on chairman and will be a hard act to follow.”

Mr Bethell has been succeeded by Bill Griffin, who has been a driver with the community group for seven years.

In his acceptance speech, Mr Griffin thanked Hugh for all his untiring work for the organisation. He reflected that during those 12 years Alton Community Care had undertaken more than 45,000 journeys, taking people from Alton and the surrounding villages to hospital and medical appointments. This adds up to more than 725,000 miles, equivalent to driving round the world 29 times or to the moon and back and back to the moon again.

He welcomed other new faces in Jeanette Lambarth, who has taken on the job of membership secretary, and Kevin Jones, who has become chief co-ordinator.

Finally, Mr Griffin pointed out that Alton Community Care - known affectionately to thousands of clients as ‘Care Cars’ - can only continue, as a charity, to provide the service if it has a steady stream of new volunteers to replace those who have to give up or who move away. The service is free and relies on the voluntary donations of clients to pay the volunteers their expenses.

Any drivers who feel able to give up a few hours a week to help, ACC would be very pleased to hear from them. There is no regular commitment and drivers take as many or as few bookings to fit in with their spare time.

Alton Community Care would also be pleased to hear from anyone able to spare two or three days a month to act as a co-ordinator and manage the phones. Co-ordinators do this from their own homes from 9am-4pm.

For more details or to get involved, call 01420 541520 or e-mail [email protected].