And our Star of the Year 2025 is…

On Saturday 22 February 2024 we returned to the Hilton Hotel, Kennet Island, Reading for our annual Night with the Stars event.

Throughout this fantastic evening, we celebrated our star employees from 2024, as well as those with notable achievements and outstanding customer service, finishing the evening by crowning of our Star of the Year. 

stars of the year

Our three ‘main’ stars were awarded towards the end of the evening with Alma Cox winning Driving Star of the Year, Babar Kiyani winning Support Star of the Year and Jack Davidson winning Engineering Star of the Year. 

Alma Cox won Star of the Month in November and was chosen as our Driving Star of the Year for her excellent customer service, friendly approach to everyone and welcoming smile. Her dedication to her job and the way she still performs outstandingly well after 25 years saw her take the top driving award. 

Babar won Support Star due to his growth and dedication in his role in our busy control room over the past 2 years. Starting out as a driver, Babar has become a wonderful asset to the control team. 

Engineer Jack was awarded the top Engineering award for his professional approach to work, commitment to excellence and winning attitude. Still early in his career, Jack is showing all the right behaviours and skills to be a real star for years to come. But there can be only one overall Star of the Year and it’s a huge congratulations to driver Alma Cox who was chosen as our Star of the Year for 2025. 

Alma truly embodies our core values including unrelenting customer focus, always doing the right thing and having fun.

She was faced tough competition for star of the year against both our Support Star and Engineering Star of the Year, however it was decided that with her impressive record of customer feedback and friendliness over the past 25 years of her working for Reading Buses; she was a well-deserved winner. 

more awards

As well as our driving, support and engineering stars, we also awarded some additional stars.  

Sharmila Perera was crowned as our Charity Champion in recognition of her hard work and dedication towards raising funds for our 2024 Charity of the Year.

We awarded our Community Hero going to driver David Newell for his assistance in helping a vulnerable young person when he noticed something wasn’t right – ensuring they were safely returned home and given the help they needed.

Our Customer Champion was driver Steve Saunders, who received an extraordinary number of compliments from customers throughout 2024 showing his dedication to making sure everyone on his bus is taken care of.

Anne-Marie Elliot was recognised as our Unsung Hero in reflecting her impact in keeping our business running smoothly as part of Allocations. She has high satisfaction amongst drivers and managers alike as she balances the needs of the business with the personal needs of the drivers. 

Finally, our Rising Star award went to Engineer James Roberts who was recognised for his dedication and motivation to developing and progressing in his role over the past 18 months. 

We also recognised driver Amarjit Singhs impressive 50th year working for Reading Buses to which he received a standing ovation. 

Our Night with the Stars evening saw voice of our onboard announcements and radio personality David Sheppard return once again as our compere for the evening, helping provide additional sparkle and wit to our ceremony. 

The evening came to an end with a charity raffle. Tickets for the raffle were purchased by attendees throughout the night and in total raised over £450 for our Charity of the Year, Berkshire Youth. 

We would like to thank all our employees who helped make 2024 great and look forward to next year’s Night with the Stars!

a big thanks to our sponsors

The night was a huge success and would not have been possible without the support and generosity of our sponsors. 

We’d like to thank our headline sponsor Alexander Dennis as well as sponsors Bus and Coach World limited, BP rolls, Ticketer, Blandy & Blandy, Omnibus EPM, r2p, Dawson Group, Lazzerini, Michelin, Powerfleet, Frasers and Zenobe.

Their contributions to our evening allowed us to help make sure that everyone had the best evening possible.