YHAgroup.org.uk

Twelve groups took part in the 2007 President’s Awards and the judges were pleased to see a high standard of entries again.

The President’s Awards were introduced in 1985 to recognise the work that local groups do for the YHA and 2007 was the twenty-third year of the awards.

Three-quarters of the eight categories have been won by a different group from last year, and as usual each of the categories will be presented before moving on to the overall results.

First of the eight categories is for the Best Conservation Project, and this was won by COPSE, the Croydon YHA Group. The group helped with the Downlands Countryside Management Project three times during the year at Hutchinson’s Bank and Farthing Downs near the Croydon suburb of New Addington. The chalk downland is a rare ecosystem and COPSE helped with scrub clearance and preparing areas for fencing in order to introduce grazing by sheep. The restored downland will allow orchids and Chalk Hill Blue butterflies to spread. With also collecting 11 sacks of rubbish discarded near a footpath, ten different members of COPSE put in a total of 300 man-hours of work on this project.

Some very good publicity work was included in the four entries for the Best Publicity Strategy category from Barnet, Croydon, Leeds and Stafford YHA Groups. The winner is Barnet YHA Group whose aim was to increase the group’s membership from 70, the highest it had ever been. Their publicity strategy was based mainly on personal contacts and the use of the web, but they also redesigned their leaflets and identified new outlets to distribute them to. Barnet always showed themselves as an active and vibrant club which would appeal to younger members.

Ten groups entered the Best Programme category and, with many well presented programmes featuring a good variety of hostelling weekends and other events, this was again one of the more difficult categories for the judges. Barnet, Leicester, Stafford, Croydon and Leeds all deserve a mention, but the clear winner this year is Guildford Outdoor Group. Guildford’s programme can be seen on www.gog.org.uk and it is also available as a neat A4 sheet, colour coded for Socials, Walks and Weekends away. A great variety of events in various venues are chosen for the socials, walks are organised on a weekly basis and there are one or two hostelling weekends away each month including some trips abroad.

In the Best Fundraising Initiative category Leeds came a close second, but the winner is COPSE, Croydon YHA Group who attracted eleven local groups to their gathering at Holmbury St Mary Youth Hostel, filling the 46 beds and with 20 camping in the hostel grounds. The weekend included a quiz, live music, dancing, walks, a picnic, a barbecue and even story telling. A surplus of £644.10 was made from the weekend and this is being held in a special fund to be used on a project, preferably at Holmbury St Mary when they are sure of the destiny of the hostel.

The Best Work Undertaken At A Hostel category was won by Barnet YHA Group with their working party at Jordans Youth Hostel last April. Twelve members of the group, and three others, treated the exterior of the building and fences with black wood preserve, cleared the guttering of leaves, removed moss from the roof, cleaned the caravans and reduced the height of the vegetation around them and removed earth from the driveway.

The Best Newsletter Or Magazine category attracted only four entries this time but these included good quality publications from Barnet and Reading. The clear winner again is COPSE, Croydon YHA Group with their publication founded in 1934, renamed Viewpoint in 1939 and now boasting up to 36 well laid out pages, some of them in colour, with lots of well written articles and plenty of clear photographs.

The Best New Member’s Package category had four entries, with Leeds in third place and Croydon second. Barnet YHA Group won this category with their very carefully thought out scheme to welcome new members into their group which includes a thoroughly prepared set of information about many aspects of the group, a membership card and ways of keeping in touch with the group.

The final category, with nine entries this time, is for the Best Web-site and it is clear that the standard of local group web-sites continues to improve. Leeds, Croydon, Leicester and Derby deserve a special mention, but the winner of this category is Barnet YHA Group with their site, www.barnetyha.org. On entering Barnet’s site the countryside photo across the top and azure background appear very welcoming and hint at what the group has to offer. Forthcoming events and a welcome to the group are prominently shown and there is easy access to other well prepared areas such as a photo album, membership details and the public versions of the groups newsletters.

Before moving on to the overall results I would like to thank the three judges this year, Ivan Morley, Jeff Murry and Alan Summers, all of whom are former members of the National Local Groups Committee.

Thanks too to Ivan for producing the certificates again.

And so to the overall results for the 2007 President’s Awards.

It was very close this year between the groups that achieved fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth places, and all four of these made a good entry in one or two categories.

• Reading came eighth, Stafford were seventh, Derby came sixth and Leicester were fifth.
• Guildford Outdoor Group was in 4th place.
• Leeds YHA Walking Group gained 3rd place.
• Barnet YHA Group are the runners-up for 2007.
• Winner of the President’s Trophy are the 2003 and 2004 winners, COPSE, Croydon YHA Group.

This year, 2008, marks the twenty-fourth year of the President’s Awards, and it is to be hoped that plenty of local groups compete for them, whether just for a category or two or for most or all of the categories.