Month: October 2014

Despite being just 7 years old, Ella put her summer holidays to good use by organising “Ella’s Super Cycle” and cycling 200 miles , raising both money and awareness for local charity Alice’s Escapes.

Ella set off on her mission with a goal of being “helfpul, kind and getting fit”

Ella was inspired to raise money for Alice’s Escapes after hearing about Alice at school – Ella’s Mum said the story had a profound effect on young Ella, with the realisiation of how many children are affected by serious and terminal illnesses. In preparation for the challenge, Ella requested a bike for her 7th birthday.

Families with seriously ill children will benefit from Ella’s fundraising as she has raised over £2000 for Alice’s Escapes which provides such families with holidays and breaks.

Ella didn’t jsut sit back and rely on the money coming in, she actively worked for it – she gave presentations at shcool and visited the charity offices to find out more about their work. She recorded an online blog about her exploits and recorded lovely videos of her journey to publicise the fundraising effort.

Ella has continued with her  fundraising, recently dressing as a witch and selling Halloween treat bags in the village to raise more money for the charity.

Ella effectively gave up her summer holiday and committed to a six week cycling schedule to help others – amazing and inpsiring for a seven year odl girl – well done Ella on your nomination and…

BREAKING NEWS – congratulations on making it to the final three in this category, see you on the red carpet at the Forum in March!

The latest COURAGE AWARD nomination is for three officers from Cumbria Constabulary who have shown courage and professionalism after they tackled and arrested an armed gang in Barrow-in-Furness

PC Glenn Myerscough, PC Kevin Latham and PC Andrew MacFarlane demonstrated immeasurable courage and resilience in dealing with the three men one of whom was armed with a loaded gun while another was carrying a large knife.

The Officers have received the Chief Constables Commendation and were nominated in the National Police Bravery Awards for their work in tackling the armed gang.

The officers in carrying out their day to day duties have worked together demonstrating immeasurable courage and resilience in the face of very real personal danger. The details of officers’ bravery and professionalism and these incidents highlight the courage and dedication of the officers serving the people of Cumbria.

Thankfully, incidents like the one that these officers exhibited such bravery in are few and far between in Barrow, but to know we have such brave and dedicated professionals serving to protect the public is a great reassurance.

Well done all three on your nomination for a Courage award and….

BREAKING NEWS – congratulations on making it to the final three in this category, see you on the red carpet at the Forum in March!

We have another nomination in the Community Focussed Business category in the 2015 Love Barrow Awards – A Stitch Different Community Interest Company.

“Blessed are the children of the piecemakers…For they shall inherit the quilts!”

A Stitch Different are all parents & carers of  Special Needs and disabled children, the community interest company makes therapy products for people with sensory disorders, with the proceeds go back into the Furness disability community. They also give disabled people work experience & meaningful activities giving higher self esteem along with learning new skills. They’ve donated many items to help raise funds for local disability group & organised many awareness events.

They’ve organised several awareness & fundraising events and donated items for the Autistic societies “Onesie Wednesday”, more recently they organised a flashmob in Barrow town centre to raise awarenes & funds for the National Autistic Society- Furness branch.

They have given work experience to young adults with autism & created employment for other parent carers all whilst looking after disabled young people themselves.

The range of products they manufacture is amazing, you can see many examples on their Facebook page

A fantatsic initiative and a great worthy nomination for Community Focussed Business of the Year.

BREAKING NEWS – congratulations on making it to the final three in this category, see you on the red carpet at the Forum in March!

 

Here’s the latest nomination in the 2015 Love Barrow Awards group or Project of the Year category – “Love Barrow Families”.

Love Barrow Families was the dream of Trina Robson and Alison Tooby, who wanted to create a way of working with families with the most complex needs in our community to really make a difference.

Since the idea was put forward over two years ago, Alison and Trina have worked tirelessly to realise that dream and create a team and a way of working that supports the whole family, assessing their real needs and discovering the skills and assets of the people in that family and those surrounding them to produce a specially targeted package of support.

“They are incredibly hard working and have daily contact with many of the families they are working with, giving practical, emotional support to people who are often in crisis. They do this without judgment and with consistency, the families have developed extremely positive working relationships with the professionals involved in the project and there have been many examples of massive progress being made by families who have often struggled for many years and have responded positively to a different way of working.”

The team have worked hard to make sure that new ideas and a new approach succeed, often having to challenge existing ways of working to make improvements.

“It’s been difficult for some professionals who have traditionally worked in a more generic way to see how this approach can be successful and sustainable and they have faced a battle at times to get people to understand and support a more holistic and integrated way of working with families. It has been exhausting to see the determination of Trina and Alison to seek funding and build around them a team of
truly dedicated group of professionals who support the project because they believe it can make a difference, but they have achieved this through a passionate belief that the people of Barrow are special and can make a innovative project like this work”

A great scheme delivering real benefits to families in Barrow – well done on your success so far and on your nomination for a Love Barrow Award.

We’re into the last two weeks of nominations for the 2015 Love Barrow Awards – we’ve had some great nominations so far but we’re always happy to have more! Nominations close at midnight on Sunday 9th November and we cannot accept any late entries, so if you know of someone, group, company that would be a fitting nominee for any of our NINE award categories, get those nominations in now!

The full process can be completed from this website and is really quick and easy – but do remember that the judging team can ONLY work with the information submitted on the entry forms, so as much detail as possible goes a long way to giving your nomination the best chance come judging day.

Follow the link here to nominate and we look forward to receiving your nominations.

Watch the blog this week for details of more nominations we have received, or have a look back over the 50+ blog posts so far for a bit more detail on some of the nominees posted so far.

 

A DOUBLE HEDGEHOG NOMINATION!

You read it right – we have two nominees for the Environmental Award that are colsely connected in their care of hedgehogs in the borough.

Irene Cannon is another local volunteer who goes about her caring activities with a love for nature and animals being her primary focus.

Irene runs FURNESS HEDGEHOG RESCUE and over the last year has cared for and released back to their native habitat over 70 of the prickly little creatures.

Irene was recently rewarded for her hard work through the ASDA Barrow green tokens scheme, giving her money towards the construction of a large shed to house the injured animals that people bring to her for care and rehabilitation.

Irene has become a victim of her own success you could say, as word has spread of her work then more and more hedgehogs have been brought to her.

Hedgehogs can get into difficulty all year ound and the caring role has become a 24/7 occupation for Irene.

Irene also spends time educating people and schools about hedgehogs – an animal that is in decline nationally.

Irene couldn’t possibly manage the medical bills for the animals she cares for – thankfully help is at hand and Tim Miller and his team at GROVE VETERINARY CENTRE come to the rescue – looking after all the medication and costs of medical treatment that the rescued hedgehogs require.

A great example of teamwork and a great double nomination with both Irene and Tim with his team being nominated separately for the Environmental Award.

BREAKING NEWS – congratulations to both on making it to the final three in this category, see you on the red carpet at the Forum in March!

 

After what seems like a VERY long EIGHT weeks, it’s Half-Term and time for a week off to recharge those batteries for teachers, pupils and everyone else involved in our educational establishments!

Among the scores of school pupils and college students enjoying their week off, there are bound to be a number of potential YOUNG CITIZEN OF THE YEAR nominees, doing great work in the local community during half-term. Be that fundraising, charity work, caring, helping others -there are many great examples in the borough of young people who go that extra mile.

Why not have a think about that YOUNG CITIZEN you know of who goes above and beyond and nominate them for a LOVE BARROW AWARD?

Need some inspiration – have a look at last years finalists in the Young Citizen category –

JACOB MCSWEENEY

HARRISON HOLMES

and JAMES COX

All great YOUNG CITIZENS I’m sure you’ll agree and food for thought to help you think of a nomination for the 2015 Awards.

Nominating is VERY EASY – just follow the NOMINATIONS tab at the top of this page and all the details are there, you can then easily submit your entries online via that tab.

 

 

 

One of the questions we get asked here at the Love Barrow Awards HQ is about how the nomination, judging and short-listing process works – so we thought it might be a good idea to give you the details.

Nominations are open until midnight on the 9th November – make sure if you are posting your entry that it arrives before this deadline.

We take a day to compile all of the forms and supporting documents and on 11th November the judging panel sit to go through the mountain on paper. We don’t have a chimney at the offices through which we can issue coloured smoke on making our final decisions, but it might be something we can think about for the future – pink “Love Barrow” coloured smoke maybe?

The judging panel this year consists of representatives from

• Barrow Borough Council
• Barrow Community Safety Partnership
• Cumbria Constabulary
• The Bay Radio
• The North West Evening Mail
• Cumbria County Council
• Cumbria Council for Voluntary Services
• Previous Love Barrow Award Winners

 – we’ll have to clear a big enough room at our HQ!

The judges will short-list THREE finalists in each of the nine categories and select the winners. The short-listed finalists will be informed as soon as possible after that date and invited to the glittering awards ceremony at The Forum where the winners will be revealed with the opening of the Golden Envelopes. Think “Pride of Britain” awards that you see on the TV then make it even better, we really push the boat out (thanks to our super sponsors) to make it an enjoyable evening and a lasting memory for the finalists.

The awards evening will be held on the 6th March 2015, which at the time of being told you’re a finalist will seem like a long way off, but the time flies by and there is lots to do in that time! Every finalist is filmed for a video clip to be shown on the big screen at the awards and also included in the DVD of the event. Finalists have a lot of input into what gets filmed and what doesn’t in terms of the work they do, bearing in mind that they may have working environments with children and vulnerable people which all have to be taken into account.

Then it’s just a case of picking yourself something glitzy to wear ready to grace the red carpet – we’re not joking, you can see it in the picture below at the 2014 awards!

Good luck if you’ve been nominated!

If you know of a person or group who go that extra mile for the people of the Barrow Borough, how about nominating them now – there’s nine categories at the awards this year and that 9th November deadline is getting closer -full details can be found by clicking this link.