St John Katanning volunteer Barbara Groves promoted to Officer of the Order in recognition of vital service

Long-time St John Katanning volunteer Barbara Groves has been rewarded for her dedication and service to the organisation and the Great Southern community with a promotion to Officer of the Order. The 2023 Katanning Senior Citizen of the Year received the honour and the accompanying medal at a regal Government House ceremony in Perth. Ms Groves has volunteered with St John for about 25 years, driven by a desire to contribute to the organisation that does so much for WA. “I started off as a volunteer ambulance officer, and if you do extra work, you get put forward to be promoted as a Member of the Order of St John which is what I was,” she said. “And then If you keep on going you can get promoted to Officer of the Order of St John.” And Ms Groves kept going even when things got tough. “I started out in Tambellup and then we moved up here in 2016 and so I carried on,” she said. “I thought there won’t be anything for me to do here because I couldn’t go out on the road anymore, I had two knee replacements . . . I thought ‘that’s me finished’.” Ms Groves proved adept behind the desk where the work St John volunteers do behind the scenes is as vital as the emergency care they provide in the field. Ms Groves has given more than 505 volunteer hours per year over the past four years — she is a respected mentor and vice-chair of the Great Southern Looking Forward Giving Back committee, representing and supporting volunteers from around the region. The active volunteer said that news of the nomination came as a surprise. “It was just overwhelming, this has just totally blown me away,” she said. “There’s so many other people that do so much around as well you know — you don’t do it for the awards.” Ms Groves was joined at Government House on April 6 by a big cohort of St John Great Southern volunteers that were made Members of the Order including Kent Sub Centre’s Lance Cooper, Gnowangerup Sub Centre’s Jane Campbell, Kojonup’s Hayley Clarke, and Beth Trezona from Tambellup.