In September 2010 the Warwickshire Rural Community Council announced the winner of Warwickshire's Best Village competition 2010 - Marton in Rugby Borough.

The awards in this prestigious competition were presented by Martin Dunne JP, Lord Lieutenant of Warwickshire at Wolston Leisure & Community Centre on Wednesday 22nd September 2010.

Competition Organiser, Ariadne Uslu, said "Marton won prizes in four out of the six categories of the competition and was therefore a clear winner.  The judges were particularly impressed with the Marton Pig Club, the campaign to preserve the Marton Museum of Country Bygones and the range of wildlife records kept in the village."

With only half a mark between them, Quinton in Stratford District and Bubbenhall in Warwick District took  joint second place overall.  In third place was Wolvey in Rugby District.

In the new Community Heroes category, joint first place went to Mrs Sue Lappin, former post mistress at Fillongley in North Warwickshire and the volunteer firefighters in Fenny Compton, Stratford District.

Winners in the other categories were as follows:

Community Projects

Gold - Wolvey, for their summer festival

Silver - Wootton Wawen for their parish plan

Bronze - Marton for their pig club

Community Buildings

Gold- Quinton for the extension to their village hall to include changing rooms and showers

Silver - Lighthorne for turning a telephone box into a mini museum of local flora and fauna

Bronze - Shilton, for the refurbishment and redeconration of their village hall

Communication

Gold - Marton

Silver - Wolston

Bronze - Henley-in-Arden

Environmental Projects

Gold - Long Itchington for their tree planting scheme

Silver - Wolvey for the development of their wetland reserve and woodland walk

Bronze - Marton for their records of local wildlife

History & Heritage

Gold - Kineton, for mapping and recording the tombs in their churchyard Silver -

Marton, for the campaign to preserve their village museum

Bronze - Bubbenhall, for work done on the village spout

Why enter the competition?

Villages have a great deal of fun preparing an entry and also reap real benefits from working together. Past entrants have found entering a competition is a great way to build a real sense of community spirit and to give their village an MOT.

What are the judges looking for?

The judges are looking for well-balanced, proactive, caring communities. They will select the villages which, whatever their size, have made the best of local opportunities to maintain and enhance the quality of life for all their residents.  Further information can be found on the Competition Tips page. 

Judging

The judges meet together to consider the entries and all the evidence that had been sent in.  Two or three judges are allocated to each category and they give each entry marks independently. 

Marking

The marking system may appear rather complicated at first glance, but we can assure you that the complexity is due to a desire to ensure that each village gets as fair a chance of winning as possible. 

Each village is given a score out of 20 for each of the following – consultation, level of community involvement, funding, sustainability and benefit to the community – and a mark out of 50 for overall impression, giving a maximum score of 150 per judge that considers the entry.  The marks given by individual judges are then added together.

These scores are used to identify the best villages in each category (“category winners”).

In order to ascertain how well each village had done overall in the fairest way possible, the total number of marks a village had scored is divided by the number of categories that the village has entered, in order to give an average per category.  This average score is then used to identify the third, second and best village overall.

Prizes

The prize system is designed to make it possible for a village to accumulate prize money, if they win more than one prize. 

Since our competitions encourage community cohesion, celebrate and reward your community’s achievements, as well as providing an opportunity to share best practice, we hope that many more of you will enter them next year.
 

Further information regarding this competition is available by contacting:

Ariadne Uslu, Competitions Organiser
Warwickshire Rural Community Council
25 Stoneleigh Deer Park Business Centre
Abbey Park, Stareton
Kenilworth
CV8 2LY
Telephone: 02476 217390