Congratulations Tony!

We're so proud that Tony Maltby was awarded a Special Recognition Award at the first ever Age Friendly Sheffield Awards last week! You can read his nomination below, which shares the reasons he is so deserving of this accolade.

Tony Maltby is a man who has spent most of his professional and personal life advocating the benefits of active ageing across the lifecourse.  He is both a passionate advocate and a tireless campaigner to make Sheffield a place that everyone can enjoy growing older in.

I first met Tony when I joined the Age Better Core Partnership which he is a founding member of, but his passion and contribution to making Sheffield Age Friendly precedes that by many years.  Tony initially became involved in Age Better in Sheffield through his role as Chair of the Over 50s group which he undertook in a voluntary capacity.  When SYHA first considered applying for the Big Lottery’s Ageing Better programme they could think of no one more experienced than Tony to help them to develop the overall vision and strategy for the programme.  And since then Tony has become one of the programme’s longest-standing volunteer Core Partners.

Being Tony, his involvement in the programme isn’t limited to attending the 3 hour bi-monthly meetings.  Tony’s voluntary participation and leadership in the Age Better programme goes far beyond that, with attendance at Delivery Partner meetings, supporting us to recruit project staff and being on the panel for our commissioning.  Tony repeatedly goes over and above what we ask of any of our volunteers.  And SYHA and the Age Better in Sheffield programme is so much better off as a result!

In addition to his contribution to the Sheffield Over-50s group and the Age Better in Sheffield board Tony’s influence in making Sheffield more Age Friendly goes wider.  He was a former member of a group that formed the Older Peoples’ strategy ‘Making Sheffield a great place to grow old’, a member of the Fairness Commission and he worked closely with Prof Alan Walker to help shape the research agenda for European commission on ageing.

In his role as a Core Partner for the Age Better in Sheffield programme Tony advocated that the programme should commission projects that directly contributed to the eight Age Friendly domains.  This resulted in Age Better in Sheffield commissioning in excess of £1.5m to Sheffield-based organisations to deliver eight projects.  Two projects were directly aimed at making Sheffield a more Ageing Friendly place to live.  This was Tony’s response to being told this news:

“My proudest moment was in this very room when Ruby Smith told me that they’d agreed to pursue Ageing-Friendly Sheffield as the legacy for ABiS. I think I had a tear of joy in my eye – I’ve been working for this for 10 years.”

On a personal level Tony has contributed thousands of hours of his own time into the Age Better in Sheffield programme, he is a man of great integrity, not afraid to challenge decisions but equally supportive of the great contributions that the Programme’s delivery partners make.  To some of us he is informally known as ‘Mr Age Friendly’ and it continues to be a privilege to have such a warm, intelligent and passionate member – and friend – on the Age Better in Sheffield board.

Written by Vic Stirling