Press Archive

Isle of Wight Nominee for National Competition Revealed

The village that will represent the Isle of Wight in the 2005 Calor Village of the Year^® competition for England has been revealed.

The competition judges communities on six aspects of rural village life with categories in Building Community Life, Business, Young People, Older People, Environment and, judged separately, Information Communication Technology (ICT). More than 40 villages across England will be competing in the competition, which has a total prize fund of £36,000 and a top prize of £6,000.

The village of Chale will represent the Isle of Wight in the Calor Village of the Year^® for England competition. It has been nominated to enter the competition by the Isle of Wight Rural Community Council (IWRCC) as the winner of the 2005 Calor Building Community Life competition, which was launched in the Isle of Wight following support from Defra (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). Chale will be competing in the South England region of the Calor Village of the Year^® for England competition against villages from Dorset, Hampshire, Kent, Surrey, Sussex (East), Sussex (West) and Oxfordshire.

County competition organiser, Janet Short, is confident that Chale has got what it takes to do well at national level. She commented: “Chale is a vibrant village with an excellent community spirit. It has a great range of activities going on for all ages and, if it has the same effect on the Calor Village of the Year^® for England judges as it did on our judges, should do very well. We would like to wish Chale the best of luck and look forward to seeing how they’ve got on at the final awards event for the national competition which is being held on Tuesday 6th December.”

As the winner of the Calor Building Community Life competition in the Isle of Wight, Chale was presented with £400 prize money and a framed certificate at a recent presentation event which was attended by Paul Goodall of Calor and Mike Gilks of Government Office South East representing Defra. Chale beat off competition from four other villages to win the top prize and go through to the national competition. The village of Northwood was awarded £100 as the runner up. Brading, Brighstone and Newchurch, also presented with framed commemorative certificates, were the other participating villages.

For further information please contact IWRCC by email at janet.short@iwrcc.org.uk or on 01983 524058.

Further press information from: Emma Flinn, Flent PR Ltd
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