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County’s Top Villages Revealed

The winning villages in the 2006 Calor Gloucestershire Village of the Year competition, organised by Gloucestershire Rural Community Council (GRCC) have been revealed.

The successful communities were announced at an awards presentation ceremony on Thursday 20th July at the Solarium, Fullwood House, University of Gloucestershire, Park Campus, Cheltenham. Ray Brookes of competition sponsor Calor and other category sponsors presented representatives of the winning villages with their awards which consisted of framed commemorative certificates and prize money totalling £4,500. The communities were judged on eight categories covering Building Community Life, Older People, Business, Young People, Environment, ICT (Information Communication Technology), Healthy Village and Safer Village and prizes were awarded as follows –

There were two new additions to this year’s competition. An extra certificate, Most Promising Newcomer, in recognition of new communities entering and the variety of community effort achieved. This year’s winner was Clearwell in the Forest of Dean. The second was the Grand Prize Draw, open to all completed entries. The fantastic prize, donated by B & Q warehouse in Gloucester, was a gas powered barbeque and gazebo, won once again by Poole Keynes.

The competition is sponsored by Calor – the UK’s leading supplier of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) with additional support from DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) specifically for the Building Community Life category, Gloucestershire Crime & Disorder Reduction Partnerships, Local Strategic Partnerships Health sub-groups, Gloucestershire Primary Care Trusts, Gloucestershire First’s Rural Partnership and the Gloucester Citizen, Gloucestershire Echo and Forester newspapers.

Lesley Archer, new Chief Executive of competition organisers Gloucestershire Rural Community Council, commented: “We are absolutely delighted with this year’s competition. It was wonderful to see not only new villages entering but some of the smaller communities winning major prizes. If Poole Keynes, with a population of just 147 can win the overall prize, we hope this would encourage other smaller communities to enter next year.”

As the overall winner of the competition and 2006 Calor Gloucestershire Village of the Year, Poole Keynes will now go forward to represent the county in the prestigious national Calor Village of the Year® for England competition. More than 40 villages across England will be competing in the competition, which has a total prize fund of over £39,000 and a top prize of £7,000. Pool Keynes will be representing Gloucestershire in the West England region of the competition against villages from Herefordshire, Worcestershire, Somerset, Avonside, Cornwall, Devon, Shropshire and Wiltshire.

Lesley Archer concluded: “We wish Pool Keynes the best of luck with the next stage of the competition. It’s a great community full of enthusiastic and motivated residents and we’re sure they’ve got what it takes to do really well at national level.”

For further information about the competition please call Barbara Piranty on 01452 528491.

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Editor’s Notes:-

GRCC is dedicated to enriching the lives of people living in rural Gloucestershire by supporting them through change and by enabling them to determine and develop their own communities.

Calor Village of the Year®

Calor, the leading supplier of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) to those living and working in the countryside, has supported rural activities in England, Scotland and Wales for 20 years through its Rural Sponsorship programme, which includes the Calor Village of the Year® for England and Wales competitions and the Calor Scottish Community of the Year competition.

The Calor Village of the Year® for England competition, now in its tenth year, was founded and developed by Calor, and is organised and funded by the company on an annual basis.

Please note that Calor Village of the Year® is a registered trademark and should be referred to in full in all circumstances.

Entry to the Calor Village of the Year® for England competition is through the existing county competition network.

Following competition support in 2005, Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) is once again providing Calor with additional funding in 2006 to enhance the community life element of the competition through the Building Community Life category. Defra’s special aim is to encourage the inclusion of all groups and individuals into the fabric of rural community life - building cohesive and mutually supportive communities. Defra’s involvement means that every village in England has the opportunity to enter the 2006 Calor Village of the Year® for England competition.

The national Calor Village of the Year® judges look for well-balanced, pro-active, caring communities which, irrespective of size, have made the best of local opportunities to maintain and enhance the quality of life for all residents.

The prize money for the national Calor Village of the Year® for England competition alone stands at over £39,000. First prize is £7,000 with £2,000 going to each of five regional winners. In addition, there are five category prizes of £500 within each region (covering Business, Environment, Care for Older People, Care for Young People and Information Communications Technology), and a prize of £750 for the winner of the Building Community Life category in each of the five regions. The five regional winners of the Information Communication Technology category are judged to find an overall winner, the award for which is £1,000. There is also, thanks to the Defra support, a prize of £2,000 for an overall Building Community Life winner, which is selected from the five regional winners.

For general information on the Calor Village of the Year® for England and Wales competitions:
email: info@calorvillageoftheyear.org, tel: 01962 629768, or visit: www.calorvillageoftheyear.org

For more information on the Calor Scottish Community of the Year competition:
visit: www.communityoftheyear.co.uk

For more information on Defra:
visit: www.defra.gov.uk or for information specific to rural affairs visit: www.defra.gov.uk/rural/default.htm

Further press information from: Emma Flinn, Flent PR, a Connectpoint Company tel: 0161 817 4200 / email: emma.flinn@connectpoint.co.uk

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