This Award is to celebrate and recognise volunteering excellence. The inaugural Award for Volunteering Excellence was presented on the 27th October 2013 at JOY’s Annual General Meeting.
Each year at JOY’s AGM, the Award for Volunteering Excellence is presented to a volunteer or volunteers who exemplify volunteering excellence, from intergrity and work ethic, to quality of work, to passion for service to the community.
Alongside the JOY Award for Volunteering Excellence is the Addam Stobbs Award for Broadcasting Excellence, which focuses specifically in the on-air side of volunteering at JOY.
Recipients of the JOY Award for Volunteering Excellence are:
2023
Chris Furneaux
Presented in recognition of exceptional service as the leader of the JOY Archives and amazing dedication to the JOY30 project.
2022
Con Keramitsis 
For his unyielding commitment to sourcing relevant, topical, and engaging interviews for JOY Drive.
2021
Greg Bail & Damian Sabatini
For their ongoing and invaluable work across all things tech at JOY.
2020
Clayton Wimshurst
“Having volunteered at JOY for over 5 years now I have been delighted by the experiences that it has afforded me. Starting as a podcaster 
and moving into other roles like a producer, presenter and trainer, JOY has given me skills that have translated into my day job and even helped me to get leadership roles in teaching. Being part of JOY has benefited me in so many ways and I love what I do.
I wish the thank the entire JOY community for all of their tireless work. I have worked on a variety of shows with some amazing cohosts. As part of the production team, Jason Gipps gave me an amazing start and I have loved the continuation of that work with Jack and Jordan. Our work could not go ahead without the amazing Anne, Chris and a small collection of paid staff who all go above and beyond. No matter what your role is at JOY you add to an amazing community and I thank you all for what you do”.
2019
Michael Polh
Michael has volunteered at JOY since 2012. He is the producer and host of BabblePOP! – the show with songs in a language other than English., and also the producer and host of JOY Eurovision. If that wasn’t enough Michael is one of our radio trainers.
Michael Polh, with Anne Hamilton & Ange Barry CEO
Taking over the Music Director role in 2017, Michael now leads the music team with great passion to create Melbourne’s Most Uplifting Music Mix for JOY, five days every week from the start of Breakfast to the end of Drive. For events and special broadcasting JOY requires a special music mix, and Michael enthusiastically drives the creation of these playlists.
Michael plays a vital role in ensuring we remain compliant with our broadcasting licence, by leading the station in the enormous task of collecting and marshalling details for our quarterly APRA (Australian Performance Arts Rights Association) reporting.
Michael’s work ethic, attention to detail and passion for music and particularly for community radio, drive him to stand out as an example of volunteering excellence. His work supports many other broadcasters to be able to realise their show and aspirations.
2018
Pete Holmes
Tennille Moisel, Pete Holmes, Anne Hamilton
Pete has been a volunteer since April 2017 and is currently the JOY Podcast Coordinator. Podcasting is an increasingly important channel for JOY as we seek to broaden our reach and impact, giving our listener the choice to listen to our content at a time and place that suits them. Having a committed and dedicated volunteer like Pete coordinating JOY’s podcasts help us achieve our aspirations in this space. Since moving into the Podcast Coordinator role, Pete has established a strong team of more than 40 podcasters, and he has taken the lead on setting up training for new podcasters. He actively recruits podcasters for shows requesting podcast support, and has also built robust reporting for our podcast service, ensuring we can track how our podcasts perform. Pete is also incredibly friendly and is very enthusiastic about JOY, always offering to help where he can.
Congratulations Pete!
2017
Clayton Wimshurst
Tennille Moisel, Clayton Wimshurst, Anne Hamilton
Clayton has been instrumental in the success of the JOY team for the past two and a half years. Clayton started in December 2014 taking on the role of podcaster for Stand Up Straight. Soon after, he offered to use his teaching experience and took on the role of podcast trainer. He has taken his life experience a step further by supporting other team leaders in best teaching practice. In August 2015, Clayton took on the role of Program Imagery Coordinator, providing direct support to individual JOY programs for their on-air branding, lifting the quality of program ID’s across the board and helping to better differentiate programs from one another. In September 2016 (and in addition to the support already mentioned), Clayton took on the Community Service Announcement producer role, allowing JOY production to collectively provide more promotional support to LGBTI and other community groups than ever before. Clayton is always available to fill in for panel operators and to mentor other volunteers. He offers his service without wanting recognition and is more than happy to be behind the scenes doing the often thankless task of paneling. He came to Mardi Gras at his own cost and paneled several shows that broadcast from the SBS studios, he recorded vox-pops and was one of our producers on the evening of the parade. Clayton has demonstrated unfailing excellence in upholding and modeling JOY’s values. He regularly steps up to mentor new volunteers, provides training and is always supportive and fair to all. He shows a passion for inclusion in our volunteer body and programming and will often go out of his way to support marginalised volunteers and programs.
Congratulations Clayton, you are more than a pleasure to have in our team and you make us all strive to be better.
2016
Josh Pearson
Josh Pearson, Anne Hamilton
This year we honour Josh Pearson for the incredible amount of work he has done in supporting JOYs technology. Josh has been a JOY volunteer since 2013. He came on board as part of the Tech Support team and has been instrumental in the ongoing maintenance of JOYs tech framework as well as a series of upgrades and implementations to continue to deliver JOYs tech solution. During his time with Josh he has demonstrated our values with passion and enthusiasm, balancing a full time job and the role of Tech Coordinator to ensure that our presenters, staff and volunteers have access to working systems 24/7. Josh shows fantastic leadership skills in the way he engages with our people, our sponsors and other stakeholders, never missing an opportunity to talk about the value of what JOY delivers for the LGBTI community. He consistently goes above and beyond to ensure the JOY is accessible to our programming team both in station and also out and about in the community. Josh is also a supportive team member who is always available to help in a function that is rarely but is also committed to coaching and always looking for ways to make processes and systems easier for everyone at JOY.
2015
Betty Sujecki
Betty Sujecki
Betty has been the JOY 94.9 photographer for several years and across 2014-15 has exemplified our values in all of her activities. She shows strong commitment to JOY’s diversity and strives to reflect our community in all her work.Betty is enthusiastic and respectful, and encourages others to be the same by leading by example.
Betty frequently puts up her hand to take on extra tasks and is always willing to take on constructive feedback. In the last 12 months, she has welcomed Hamish to the team and has fostered an excellent working relationship with him. In addition, she readily seeks out ways to learn more about photography and looks to incorporate new and creative ways of capturing JOY 94.9 moments.
2014
David Moyle
David Moyle
David has been involved in the station for the past 4 years and during this time he is probably best known for bringing jazz to JOY through his popular music program ‘Bent Notes’. Behind the scenes, David has also become an an integral part of the volunteer team and has contributed greatly to the technical team, assisted with training and is a regular panel operator on site and back at the station for the many outside broadcasts JOY undertakes each year. His great attitude and easy going nature makes him a pleasure to deal with at all times. David is the ultimate quiet achiever, a fantastic all-rounder and is always willing to help out and help others and is a well deserving recipient for this prestigious station award.
2013
bek savic
bek savic and Anne Hamilton
Volunteering for the Radiothon Special Projects Coordinator role for 2013, bek excelled in this role alongside maintaining her regular long term commitments to JOY. She did an outstanding job, both from an admin and coordination perspective, and from a people management point of view. She was meticulous with processing, ensuring that art work was accurate for print media, T-shirt design was awesome, and people were well trained and comfortable with telephone requirements and on-air promotions.
bek made an extra effort to put to work external volunteers in newly formed roles that benefited our organisation, ensuring that we both grew as an operation, that volunteers were properly engaged for their level of expertise. The Radiothon-Volunteer Thank You Party at The Eureka and the Wrap Up party, both organised by bek, were wonderful events and successes because of her ability to plan well, problem solve and follow through independently, as well as work within a team. She worked tirelessly and proved again her undying commitment to JOY 94.9.
Avi Miller
Avi Miller
Avi essentially single-handedly redeveloped the JOY website, from re-design, data transfer and implementation through to on-going maintenance and content updates. Avi provided countless hours of volunteer time, with the commercial estimate of this time valued at well over $10,000. Since the new JOY website was launched in March 2013, it has enabled JOY to reach a broader audience. Another major benefit saw hosting of JOY podcasting brought in-house, so that delivery of JOY podcasts could continue and develop without relying on a third party service.
The implementation of the new website has also resulted in the diversification and up-skilling of our volunteer base, given that a greater number of potential volunteers now recognise they no longer ‘have to’ be on-air, and can support the community through other means.