A Flag for Helmdon: a Community Competition

A Flag For Helmdon
A Community Competition

The final four designs in the Flag for Helmdon competition are now ready for the public vote and we hope you love them! Congratulations to all who took part and submitted such wonderful design concepts. The finished designs are below and you can click on each image to open a bigger version in a new window. The rationale for each design is below. When you have chosen your favourite design click on the Vote Now! button to open a new window where you can submit your vote. Voting closes at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday 25 March 2018. The winning design will be announced at the Annual Parish Meeting on 25 April 2018.

Flag A – Crossed blue and green lines on a pale yellow background with an elm leaf at the centre. The green and blue crossed lines represent the railway lines that went through the village. The green represents the fields and nature and the blue represents the Helmdon brook. The elm leaf in the centre represents one of the possible derivations of “Helmdon” meaning “valley of elms” (another is that it comes from “Helma’s Valley”). The pale yellow background represents Helmdon stone.

Flag B – A maroon diamond on a pale yellow background with a stone axe at the centre. The diamond represents St Mary Magdalene, the patron saint of Helmdon Church. The maroon background of the diamond is the colour for Northamptonshire. The stone axe in the middle represents Helmdon stone and the stone mason depicted in the Campiun window in the church. The pale yellow background represents Helmdon stone.

Flag C – A pale yellow background with green in the lower half and four arches in black. The pale yellow background represents Helmdon stone. The green represents the fields and the rural nature of the village. The arches in black represent the viaduct and the railway heritage of Helmdon.

Flag D – Crossed pale yellow lines on a maroon background with a sheep’s head emblem in the top left corner. The crossed lines represent the railway lines that went through the village. The maroon background is the colour for Northamptonshire. the sheep’s head reflects the importance of sheep farming and agriculture to Helmdon both in the past and the present.

A note about voting: The SurveyMonkey vote will allow more than one vote to be submitted per computer or hand held device. This is because we recognise that several people within a household may wish to vote from the same device. However, when a vote is submitted the system records the IP address of the device, which enables us to look for any unusual voting patterns! Helmdon Parish Council reserves the right to discount any votes that appear to have been submitted unfairly. The vote will be advertised in Helmdon only (via the web site, Facebook and village organisations) but it is a public vote so please feel free to ask your wider friends and family to vote if they would like to do so.

Helmdon Parish Council is pleased to announce an open competition to design a flag for Helmdon and you are invited to take part!

The competition opened on 1 December 2017 and entries must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday 17 January 2018.

An assessment panel, including representatives from Helmdon Parish Council and the Communities Vexallologist from The Flag Institute will then choose a final set of designs to be put to a public vote. The public vote will be held online and via e-mail beginning in February 2018 and the result will be announced at the Annual Parish Meeting on 25 April 2018.

The winning design will be registered in the Flag Institute’s UK Flag Registry and will then be used to represent the village of Helmdon.

A flag for Helmdon will be a free, public symbol for all to use that will:

 Raise recognition and awareness of the village
 Express the pride in our local community
 Celebrate the heritage and culture of our part of Northamptonshire

Individuals and groups are invited to create proposals in line with the competition terms and conditions (below) and bearing in mind the Flag Institute design guidelines. However, if you are not an expert graphic artist, don’t worry! You can still submit your design concept and if it is chosen for shortlisting the design can be worked up by a professional. Your ideas are as important as your design skills.

Click here to download the competition rules, instructions, information and an entry form.

Click here to learn more about Helmdon’s flagpole.