The Village Halls Podcast
A podcast for anyone involved in the running of Britain's 10,000 village, church and community and anyone interested in the vital community services they provide.
The Village Halls Podcast
£5,000 Prize Fund: How Your Village Hall Story Could Win a prize
The 2025 Village Halls Inspiration Awards are announced with a £5,000 prize fund to celebrate the beating hearts of rural communities across the UK. Marc Smith and Allied Westminster MD Gavin Mitchell discuss how these awards evolved from a photography competition to an initiative showcasing inspirational stories from village halls nationwide.
• Awards open from May 1st to September 30th, 2025
• Total prize fund of £5,000 (£2,500 first prize, £1,500 second prize, £1,000 third prize)
• Open to all village, community and memorial halls in rural parts of the UK
• Entries should be 600-800 words telling an inspiring story
• Judges looking for impactful, authentic stories that could inspire others
• Entries must have permission from the hall's governing body
Submit your entry through the Village Halls podcast website. If you have questions, leave a comment on the podcast page.
Hello, my name is Marc Smith and welcome to the Village Halls podcast sponsored by Allied Westminster, the UK's largest specialist provider of Village Hall insurance and the home of Village Guard. Welcome to another Village Halls podcast. Today is a special one because we are announcing the 2025 Village Halls Inspiration Awards. I also have the pleasure of welcoming back Gavin Mitchell, the MD of Allied Westminster. Welcome back to the show, Gavin.
Gavin Mitchell:Hello MMarcark, Hello, how are you?
Marc Smith:I'm very well, thank you. Now, this is my first award, but I was wondering if you could talk about how the awards first came about, as they were not always the Inspiration Awards.
Gavin Mitchell:Now, I think we've been doing this now for about five years and it all started off with what was originally called the Wonderful Villagers Award and it was actually a photo competition. A photo competition really all about village communities and so on and so forth, village life and celebrating basically not just village halls but village and rural communities. And it was really really good fun. It was great. We had some fantastic entries and some great photographs and so on and so forth. And the concept originally was around the idea of people in the village, whether they were professional or amateur photographers, taking a really nice photograph, submitting it and nominating a village hall. So the photographer would win money and their nominated village hall would win money. So it sort of got the rural communities, the village communities, engaged and, yeah, it helped village halls with some of the winnings. But of course, with a podcast and photographs.
Gavin Mitchell:Podcasts are all about sound and I think it basically morphed into the Village Halls Inspiration Award. Because of all the good work you've been doing in the podcast site and some of the great stories that were coming out in the podcast, we realised that a great way to share good stories, a great way to inspire Village Halls across the country, would, in fact, be to morph it into a Village Halls Inspiration Award.
Marc Smith:So I suppose we are now in our fifth year of the awards and the purpose of the awards has always been around celebrating village halls as the strong beating hearts of rural communities across the UK. So I suppose we want to inspire trustees, committee members, volunteers and whole communities to share their stories, stories that how village halls are being nurtured, revitalised and reimagined and you can hear this in last year's um village halls awards, which I will link on this podcast page, but also the village halls inspiration awards page. It's also a chance to highlight success stories like we can spark new ideas and confidence in our communities. Now, Gavin, you were on the podcast when we're speaking with Jo Nickless, yeah, and I think the the standout um element of that was that North Morton village hall ended up with, uh, basically a queue of people wanting to be trustees, and I think that type of thing is what's ideal for the village halls inspiration awards, because it really shows what what these communities can do absolutely I don't.
Gavin Mitchell:I think, to be honest with you, it was a fantastic entry and obviously you can listen to the the um, you can listen to that podcast um off off your website. But, um, that was the one thing that stood out for us. I mean, it was a fantastic entry that talked about how they engaged the local community using online forms and really looked for specialists and people with the great skills to get involved with the Billy's Hall. So they got all ages, all skills, to involved with the Village Hall. So they got all ages, all skills to revitalise the Village Hall, in fact revitalise the community. But so much so and that was a standout thing for me was the fact that they had a waiting list for a team. And I go across the country and I constantly hear the problem with village halls or village hall committees and other party members is getting people involved in managing and helping govern the village halls. It's one of the greatest problems and, of course, that's why the north wharton uh winning entry stood out so much for me yeah, totally am well.
Marc Smith:So, uh, whoever's been on the website will have noticed that we have a page on there that talks about this inspirational wars, but there are no dates. So now we can announce the opening dates, which is the 1st of May 2025. Now, the entries are accepted until the 30th of September 2025. So you've got plenty of time to put your entry in. So once the entries are closed, we will have four weeks until the 31st of October when we will announce the three winners. Now, Gavin, what are the prizes for these three winners?
Gavin Mitchell:Well, there's a total prize fund of £5,000 available, which we are very proudly sponsoring alongside our underwriting partner, Ecclesiastical, which is part of the Benefacts Group. So, as I say, the total prize fund is £5,000, and that's broken down accordingly First prize, £2,500. Second prize £1,500. And the third prize £1,000.
Marc Smith:That's fantastic, Excellent. So who can enter and how do you enter? So the awards are open to all village, community and memorial halls in rural parts of the UK. Entries must be submitted with the permission of the hall's governing body, just one entry per hall. Entries should be between 600 and 800 words, telling a compelling story of how your hall is inspiring or how it has overcome challenges. You can find all the details and submit entries via the Village Halls podcast website and I will link the exact page on this at the bottom of this podcast. So, Gavin, in your experience, what makes a great entry to the Village Halls Inspiration Awards?
Gavin Mitchell:Well, I suppose we're really looking for impactful, authentic and inspiring stories, which could be all innovative or creative community initiatives or steps taken to ensure sustainability and inclusivity, overcoming adversity and setbacks, demonstrable outcomes or positive changes in community engagement, and I don't think we are being too prescriptive about this. I think it's basically an open goal for anyone to think that they've done something that has really helped their village call or helped the community in vice versa. That could inspire other people to lend some bread to the country.
Marc Smith:Yeah, that's the thing, isn't it? It's about inspiring other people as well, not just what you've done yourself, but what other people can take from what you've done.
Gavin Mitchell:The clue's in the name, yeah.
Marc Smith:So, whether you're running a busy community hub or a hall just finding its feet again, we want to hear from you. Good luck to everybody that enters. If you have any questions, please do pop a comment on the podcast page and I'll make sure I answer for everyone to see. Once again, thank you very much for your time, Gavin.
Gavin Mitchell:It's been an absolute pleasure, mark Great, to speak to you again.
Marc Smith:This is your opportunity to shine a light on your village hall story and inspire others around the UK to do the same. Thanks very much for listening. Many thanks to our headline sponsor and specialist village hall insurance provider, Allied Westminster, the home of VillageG Guard, for making this podcast possible, and to online booking system provider, Hallmaster, who also sponsor our podcast and can be found at hallmaster. co. uk. You've been listening to the Village Halls podcast, a unique listening community for Britain's village community and church halls and anyone interested in the vital community services they provide. We'll be back again soon with another episode. For more information, please visit thevillagehallspodcast. com, where you'll also find links to our social media pages. Thanks again for listening in and until the next time. Goodbye for now.
