At the 2015 Christian Resources Together (CRT) retreat in September this year Bob and Ada Hiley were privileged to be presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of their many years of serving God through Christian Literature.
Bob & Ada Hiley Receive Lifetime Achievement Award
The award was presented to them at the Book Aid Head Office in South London prior to the Annual Retreat by Steve and Mandy Briars the organisers of CRT so that Bob could be present. Ada was able to attend the Retreat at The Hayes, Swanick where the award was formally presented at the Gala Dinner by Ian Metcalfe Director of Publishing, Hodder and Stoughton.
In presenting the award Ian spoke of Bob and Ada being well known for Book Aid but that they had been with CLC for an incredible amount of time prior to that working in Leicester, Birmingham and London before becoming involved in the International ministry of CLC from which had come their inspiration to set up Book Aid. They had built up Book Aid to 2 depots, 200 collecting points and 6 bookshops in the UK. He went on to say that Steve Briars of Together Magazine had gone to interview Bob recently for an article to appear in the next edition and found out that Bob’s involvement with Christian literature went back to 1948 when he was in the Royal Navy. On board ship he had had a Bible to read but when the ship he was on docked in Chatham he came across the CLC bookshop and had been amazed at the number of Christian books available. The team at the shop had invited him to volunteer with them and he gladly became involved by packing books.
Ada received the award with great thanks on behalf of the Book Aid team:
“It’s a team effort – over 200 people collect for us from the Shetlands to the Channel Islands… Over 60 years we have been doing something we have really enjoyed. It didn’t matter how long the hours or how heavy the work we just got great pleasure from it. So thank you for recognising it.
Thank you to all who have helped. We have received so many lovely books and kind words. Many of the books, we don’t know where they have come from, so thank you to all the bookshops, publishers and individuals who have helped us. This award is for our lovely team of co-workers and helpers, not for us, we have just been a part of it.”