Defra Building Community Life category

Judges Guidelines, England 2006 competition

The guidelines below were provided for judges of the Defra BCL category in the 2006 competition. They provide a real insight into the competition and should help you assess the potential of your own community.

Guidance for County and Regional Judges

This note is meant to help you assess entries for the Building Community Life category of the Calor Village of the Year competition. It isn’t prescriptive, and it isn’t a checklist: you are judging what a village does, not what it doesn’t do. All villages are different, and some may come up with good ideas we haven’t thought of.

Even the most successful communities aren’t good at everything. And of course big villages with more facilities can do more in volume; but what matters is quality, and what a community does with the capacity it has.

“Building Community Life” is a big element in the Village of the Year competition as a whole; so what’s different? In sponsoring the new category from 2005, Calor and Defra were looking to identify and reward innovation and achievement in five main areas. All of them are relevant to the overall competition, but the BCL category focuses on these aspects in particular. They are:

• Are people involved in the community, not just in activities they enjoy (sports clubs, amateur dramatics) but especially in working (on their own or with bigger voluntary bodies) to help others, including people in need such as elderly or disabled people or single parents?

• Are people, who might be left out, such as members of ethnic minorities or as migrant workers, encouraged to join in village activities? (Of course, in a particular village there may be nobody in any one of these groups.) Does the community reach out to others? – for example, in a larger village with a school, a doctor’s surgery, shops and pubs, are people from hamlets round about helped to get there and use the services?

• Are residents involved in how the village is run? For example, are elections to the parish council contested? Do the parish council, and bodies such as the village hall management committee, consult residents before making major decisions? Do organisations and businesses in the village – church, school, shop, pub, local employers – support and promote community activity?

• Does the community plan for the future, and for how the village may change? Is there a Parish Plan? If so, does everyone – for example young people – feel they were involved in producing it, and is it being used and kept up to date? Is money raised to invest in better facilities and services? Sometimes you’ll find that good work is going on, but it all depends on one person, or on money coming in from the Lottery or the local authority: if so, are people thinking how to keep it going if the moving spirit leaves or money dries up?

• Do people know what is going on? Is there a good regular newsletter, and / or a useful website which is kept up to date? Do people make an effort to ensure that newcomers to the village find out what is happening and get involved?

Above all, does the village feel like a community that everyone has a chance to be part of? Is the village doing something different and special that others could learn from?

You will get help from the village’s competition entry and answers to the Building Community Life questionnaire, but you will also need to probe beneath the surface, look at newsletters and notice-boards, read the parish plan, talk to people and maybe ask awkward questions (though remember you’re trying to find out what’s good about the village, not tell people what’s wrong).

You will find examples of good practice in the booklet (downloadable Bulding Community Life booklet) and from talking to previous winners; but there isn’t one model village, and you’ll also be surprised what one village might be doing that others haven’t thought of.