We have been busy getting ready for submissions to open on 11 September for the 2024 Community Rail Awards. The Events team have put together the following update containing all the key dates for your diary, as well as links to information and resources that will help you when putting your submission together.
The entry booklet is still in progress, but the categories and criteria can be viewed here.
- Attendance subsidy fund – We will once again be offering attendance subsidies to community rail shortlistees to help our members be at the presentation evening in Swansea on 18 March, as we understand the financial difficulties that many of our members might face in attending otherwise.
- Entries open 11 September
- Entries close 9 October
- Shortlist announced 18 December
Awards Webinar – ‘How to submit an outstanding Awards entry and showcase your work’ – Tuesday 18 July
This online session will offer insights from our experienced Community Rail Awards judges, so you can prepare an Awards entry that stands out from the competition and highlights the vital importance of your work with communities around the UK.
Today, it’s more important than ever to demonstrate the value of community rail to the widest possible audience. The Community Rail Awards are an opportunity to do this, showcasing the incredible range of activities you deliver and the benefits they bring, helping communities thrive and ensuring people get the most from their railways. Sign up for the webinar here.
‘It’s Your Station’
We’re pleased to be reintroducing the ‘It’s Your Station’ category at next year’s Community Rail Awards. We want to thank you for all the fantastic work you do with your station, and the ‘It’s Your Station’ category is your chance to share your work with us and the wider community rail family, and to be recognised and rewarded through the awards. It’s more important than ever that we showcase the wonderful work undertaken by our member station adoption/friends groups, demonstrating the value of community rail volunteers and the benefits they bring to the wider railway.
Due to the shift in the timing of the awards, we’ve had to review how this category is judged going forward, so our team and the category judges have worked together to produce a new It’s Your Station Toolkit to provide as much support as possible to help groups put together strong entries that really showcase their stations to the judges in the best possible way. You can access and download the toolkit here – please note, wewill also be mailing the toolkit out to all of our member groups, along with the full category details and judging criteria. The judges will also be available to offer advice and support during some online drop-in sessions, which have been scheduled for late June in order to give you plenty of time to consider how to best showcase work on your station and subsequently to prepare a great entry. You can access the drop-in schedule (including all Zoom details) here.
