IN mid-December Maldon will find out who the winners are in community awards that recognise their work to help others during the pandemic crisis.

Each day (Monday to Saturday), Maldon Nub News will bring you the stories behind the community heroes and heroines who have been shortlisted for how they helped the people of the district in their hour of need.

There are 10 categories in the Maldon District Recognition of Service Awards, featuring individuals of all ages and backgrounds. The thing they have in common is their dedication to the local community.

The winners in each category will be announced on or after 12 December by leader of Maldon District Council, Councillor Wendy Stamp, with a short video featuring the winners produced.

Today (Monday, 30 November) we take a look at the stories of those nominated in the 'Creativity' category:

Emma Durrant

One of Emma's multiple nominations: "I nominated Emma for her truly inspirational hard work for keeping her choir, The Sound Collective, going online every week. Plus doing various events like quizzes! Plus there's more - Emma also asked us choir members to record our own voices to a track so we could send it to her. Then she mixed all of her members together on a recording track for a lockdown album. I have been working for the NHS throughout the pandemic but I needed something to focus on as it's been really hard. Emma supported me on a one-to-one basis with learning a solo song online. I've been a member of the choir since the very start which is over eight years ago now and Emma has supported me on a personal level as well as with illness. So I truly appreciate Emma's dedication and she has keep us going! Well done Emma from my heart."

Emma says: "Despite the early uncertainty and fear over lockdown, one certainty was to find a way to keep my choir and its community connected, for them and for my own wellbeing.

"We shifted quickly to online singing although it was very strange as everyone except me needed to be muted due to the time delay! I never heard them singing at all through lockdown and had to imagine what they sounded like!

"Despite this being better than nothing I then discovered that our virtual rehearsals were sometimes the only time singers would see other people and knowing this made me want to do more. I created a lockdown poster with singers each holding a word of "We'll Meet Again" and set up online community sessions such as coffee mornings, comedy, music quiz, bingo and games nights.

"I also developed a series of themed era sing-alongs covering the 1920's – 90's which included optional dress-up.

"Over time I persuaded singers to face their fears and record song parts at home to send in to be edited all together for a Lockdown Album giving them a chance to hear themselves sing together again. Tears were shed!

"In addition to activities around singing I extended the connections amongst the community to include a book club and also found people then offered general support such as shopping or medicine drop-offs or to give advice on gardening. Finally we came together remaining distanced by staying in our cars for a sunny afternoon drive-In choir which transmitted to car radios and had personalised choir radio jingles made.

"I'm proud to be nominated in the categories 'Above and Beyond' and 'Creativity' as it is testament to all the choir singers who adapted, chose to ride out the storm together and refused to give up the one thing that would create distraction, raise them up and keep them positive through difficult times – singing – and more importantly – singing together."

Ruth and Simon Houlding

Ruth and Simon's Nomination: "Ruth and Simon produced a full wardrobe of clinical scrubs for our mental health team to wear during the pandemic. The scrubs arrived in the first week of lockdown and have been used by the doctors, nurses and social workers in our team throughout. They used their skills to take apart one uniform and then make up 15 uniforms.

"The best bit was that the uniforms came with a little handwritten note that fell out when we tried them on for the first time. Brilliant!

"We have since had uniforms provided by the NHS, but these scrubs were essential wear for the first few weeks. Thank you very much to Ruth and Simon Houlding of Simon Houlding Upholstery – who dropped stitching upholstery and switched to stitching scrubs immediately. They are based in the Maldon district and I live in the Maldon district – but work just outside. This was an example of local people supporting local people who were working in a national setting."

Ruth and Simon say: "We offer our sincere thanks for the nomination and recognition of creativity in the Maldon district during the pandemic. Our amazing NHS workers who do a wonderful job on a daily basis went to another level when faced with Covid-19. When it was reported that PPE was desperately short we decided to set our sewing machines to work.

"We devised a simple reversible stitch that could be sewn quickly to make scrubs (instructions for which can be found on our blog). The first nine sets of scrubs were donated to an amazing NHS team who look after the mental health of our homeless people in London - we appreciate feedback from all our work but the photos and thanks we received will always be special.

"We would like to give a special mention to our amazing curtain girls, Tina Berry and Dawn Pepper, who donated their own time to help make patterns and sew scrubs and masks for the NHS and local care homes. There is an army of sewing enthusiasts in our local area who really made a difference and we applaud them all!"

Eileen Ryan

Eileen's Nomination: "My Mum, Eileen Ryan, is 82 years old and was advised to shield for medical reasons. Since March, she has been making beautiful, washable masks for our community. Eileen's masks are available in our local Community Shop in Bradwell Village and have also been sent to family and friends.

"The masks are free; people are donating to charity where they can afford to. Eileen doesn't know how much has been donated as this is left to people's personal circumstances.

"Having exhausted her supplies of left-over material, Eileen now buys offcuts online - she gets very excited when a new parcel of material arrives! To date, she has made over 500 masks and is still going strong!

"Each mask comes in its own little bag for hygiene, with an advice slip about how to wear it safely. They have pockets for filters and wire to ensure a good fit around the nose."

Eileen says: " I am so proud and honoured to have been shortlisted. Thank you.

"At the start of March when I was told I was regarded as being in the Extremely Clinically Vulnerable category and needed to isolate, to keep me busy and not get bored while being forced to isolate indoors, my daughter Catherine suggested I think about making the family some masks.

"Making these masks for the family snowballed into doing some for friends and the neighbours, then I thought I'd put some in a basket in the village community shop as well. I did this and started to put a bundle of them in the basket every Monday and Friday afternoons. I am still doing this every week. There is, and never has been, any charge for these masks, if I'm asked "what do I owe you", I suggest a little donation in a charity box would be lovely.

"I enjoy sourcing the material required for the outsides – pretty pastels, dark colours, fun and quirky patterns, also some suitable for children. I get it all from various internet sites as well as getting white cotton single sheets for the inner layer (one sheet makes 92 inside pieces). Rolls of 100 yds elastic (black and white), 18 gauge wire for the nose bands and resealable plastic snack bags for eac mask. It takes over half an hour to make each one, and there is an aperture in the back to insert a tissue or filter. At the moment I have made between 500 to 600 masks (I stopped noting them down at 450).

"I do enjoy my little "hobby" and am glad that the villagers find the masks to their liking, snapping them all up every week. While there is a demand I will continue making them, and I feel that it's my little bit of help to furthering our local community spirit, being over 82 years, realistically there aren't that many areas of help I can give.

"Thank you again for considering my nomination - it means so much to think my small contribution to our community efforts is worth a mention."

Claire Montgomery

One of Claire's multiple nominations: "Clare started lockdown making scrubs for Broomfield Hospital, including ones with characters on for the children's ward. She then started making face masks and selling them to raise money for the Big Sing Choir to keep it going through the Covid-19 crisis. She also made a beautiful quilt & raffled it to raise more funds. She is still making face masks and selling them to the local community at a very fair price. Claire has sewn her way

through lockdown and helped many people."

Claire says: "I'm so surprised that people nominated me as I was just trying to do something to help where I could. Having been an experienced machinist many years ago, I had just retired from Maldon's Tesco clothing departmant after 23 years working there. When Covid lockdown started we had a daughter in the later stages of pregnancy and our son in Australia. I was worried but thought I can't just sit here - what can I do to help? The girls at Tesco had no protection so I looked up the pros and cons of cotton masks and decided to make some to give out to my girls at Tesco and anyone else that needed them. My thoughts were that something must be better than nothing! It all just went from there to an overwhelming display of generosity from friends and family wanting to help.

"I asked for bed linen and had bags and bags turn up. I made scrubs bags, scrubs for paediatric wards from the kids bed sets. I also joined Scrubs for Broomfield. People were giving me money to buy fabric or anything I needed; it was overwhelmingly heartwarming. I donated some of it to Scrubs for Broomfield and bought rolls of fabric to make scrubs for anyone that needed them. I even got my sister to help me as it was so busy trying to keep up with demand! I made surgical gowns, too.

"People wanted to donate for my masks so, after Scrubs for Broomfield had enough, I asked them to donate to my choir The Big Sing as they were struggling. I wanted to help my choir survive as I've belonged for nearly nine years. I made a lockdown quilt and raffled it and then we charged £2 a mask. It was amazing. I'm very honoured to be nominated - as a local girl born and bred I love Maldon and the people in it and just wanted to help."