Village life page
Best Village Competition: 2006
More success has come Helmdon’s way in the 2006 Calor Village of the Year competition.
Helmdon was awarded first place in the medium sized villages class of the Village of the Year for Northamptonshire, narrowly beating off stiff competition from East Haddon.
Geddington, a village between Kettering and Corby won the larger village category and then went on to take the overall title for Northamptonshire Village of the Year 2006, bumping Helmdon in to second place.
Helmdon was also runner up (again to Geddington) in the ICT category, which follows on from last year’s success in winning the regional competition for ICT.
The final accolade came with a “highly commended” in the Defra-sponsored “Building Community Life” category, which looks at community involvement and provision for the elderly and the isolated.
The awards were presented at a ceremony at Hunsbury Hill, the centre owned by competition organisers Northamptonshire Action with Communities in Rural England (NACRE). Peter Burns, chair of Helmdon Parish Council collected the cup for medium Village of the Year from NACRE’s David Scudamore and Danny Moody, Helmdon’s Webmaster, collected the ICT award.
The judging for the 2006 competition took place on 6th June when three judges visited Helmdon for the allotted two hours. The judges were met at the Bell PH (by kind permission of Richard and Sally Phillips) by no less than twenty two representatives from village clubs, groups and organisations. The judges were impressed that everyone had made the effort to meet them and that each representative was so enthusiastic about their group’s activities.
Hopefully next year will see the same level of enthusiasm and we can carry off the overall title for Northamptonshire. The judges marks and comments are below:
|
Maximum Marks |
Marks Awarded |
Remarks | |
| Building Community Life | 40 | 38.5 | Surprisingly no welcome pack for such a well organised village, but the rest was very good. |
| Village Life | 29 | 29 | So many things that the people can join in. Good notice boards and information readily available. Very good, you have full marks. |
| Business | 10 | 7 | What one would expect in a very rural village. |
| Young People | 20 | 20 | Lots for all the children & young people to join in. Great result. |
| Older People | 16 | 10 | This section scored very well until housing scheme for the elderly, as there was no provision, not entirely the village’s fault. |
| Environment | 22 | 21 | You have this very well covered, excellent all round. |
| Wow Factor | 10 | 10 | Excellent reception from the village & so enthusiastic. A beautiful village and very well loved by the people who live there. |
| TOTAL AWARDED | 147 | 135.5 |
Links In This Section:
• Village Of The Year Competition 2005
• Northamptonshire ACRE
- Groups and series
- Best Village Competition
- Topics
- Northamptonshire's Best Village Competition
Researched and written by Helmdon Local History Group volunteers. We do our best, but we can sometimes get things wrong. Corrections and additions are welcome.