The garden celebrates Yorkshire’s artists and those that have used Yorkshire as their muse such as Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, J M W Turner, David Hockney and Andy Goldsworthy.

Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “This is a fantastic achievement in just our second year exhibiting at Chelsea. We have been rushed off our feet today with visitors and well wishers clambering for a view of our award-winning garden. We have Barbara Hepworth’s granddaughter Sophie Bowness visiting us today, which is wonderful timing on the day we won Silver.”

Bowness was visiting the garden to see her grandmother’s 1958 sculpture Ascending Form, on loan from the Arts Council Collection, which is the centrepiece of the Art of Yorkshire design. It is the first time an original Hepworth sculpture has been exhibited at the world famous horticultural show.

Kate Dundas, Landscape Architect at Gillespies, Leeds, said: “The response to the garden has been overwhelming; visitors to the show have been incredibly enthusiastic about the design and what it represents. We are thrilled to have received a Silver medal; this is a proud moment for us and Yorkshire.”

Yorkshire – European Capital of Sculpture

Gary Verity added: “With the opening of The Hepworth Wakefield last weekend Yorkshire is officially the European Capital of Sculpture and the aim of the rest of this week is to encourage as many people as possible to visit Yorkshire and explore our county’s great galleries and gardens.”

Cluny Macpherson, Regional Director of Arts Council England, added: “Yorkshire is a place of inspiration for artists and full of opportunities to experience great art. Barbara Hepworth’s work will continue to be centre stage in Yorkshire following The Hepworth Wakefield opening. This landmark new gallery in the place of her birth will show rarely-seen works by Hepworth as well as a changing programme of the best contemporary artists.”

What next?

• Get more news from Welcome to Yorkshire {opens new window}

The Dales Festival of Food and Drink has taken place every year over the May Day Bank Holiday weekend since 2002 and was conceived to help the area recover from the impact of foot and mouth disease in 2001.  It is now celebrating its 10th year.

The event showcases Yorkshire food production (most of the produce comes from within 50 miles of Leyburn), real ales, local chefs, the importance of Dales agriculture, alongside entertainment from local brass and jazz bands, morris and sword dancers, and activities for children.

A community comes together

Local volunteers organise and steward the festival making it a real community achievement.  Every effort is made to ensure that the event appeals to all members of the family. Children under 16, who attend free of charge, are especially catered for, with interactive displays in the Farming for Food area and vintage fairground attractions.

The event has been so successful that the organisers have been making grants from the profits since 2003 towards a wide variety of community projects. These grants now total over £120,000 and offers totalling £20,000 have been made for this year.

Dales Festival of Food and Drink was joint winner of the Social and Community category of the North Action for Market Towns Awards.

What next?

• Join Action for Market Towns for access to our valuable database of case studies (including a detailed study of this Award-winning project and contacts), policy and practice research, and much more (AMT members read the full case study here)
• Find out more about the Action for Market Towns Awards
• Ask questions in the AMT Forum about how to attract more visitors to your town

Renaissance Knaresborough wanted to illustrate the rich heritage of Knaresborough with an audio tour that could be downloaded from the internet.

The project was a great opportunity to involve the local secondary school, King James’s School through its extra-curriculum Enterprise Group. The pupils, aged between 13 and 16, worked on the project in their own time for around a year, meeting weekly at lunchtimes.

They invited a local historian, who gives guided historical walks around the town, to act as their mentor. Each pupil then investigated a different aspect of the town and – after going on an historic walk themselves – identified which aspects they wanted to include and ordered them into a structured walk.

The voice of youth

Each pupil wrote and recorded the script for his or her own element of the tour.  The finished audio tour was edited and prepared for downloading on to MP3 players, such as i-pods.

A professional designer worked with the pupils on a leaflet to promote and accompany the audio tour.   The final element was to create a website to carry the audio downloads: www.knaresboroughaudiotours.info. The audio tour is also available pre-loaded on MP3 players that can be borrowed from the Knaresborough Tourist Information Centre for a small charge.

The official launch took place in October 2010 at an event organised by the pupils.

Knaresborough Audio Tour was joint winner of the Environment and Culture category of the North Action for Market Towns Awards.

What next?

• Join Action for Market Towns for access to our valuable database of case studies (including a detailed study of this Award-winning project and contacts), policy and practice research, and much more (AMT members read the full case study here)
• Find out more about the Action for Market Towns Awards
• Ask questions in the AMT Forum about how to attract more visitors to your town

PLEASE NOTE: THIS SEMINAR IS NOW FULLY BOOKED
To add your name to the reserve list email Susannah Maxwell, Action for Market Towns Administrator at susannah.maxwell@towns.org.uk.

Do you constantly struggle to find the right funding for your town’s projects?

Once you find funding do you need to know how to bid for it successfully?

If this is something you struggle with, help is at hand. AMT’s Market Towns Academy, in partnership with North Yorkshire County Council, is putting on a training session especially for community groups and town councils working in Yorkshire towns, to help you solve these sticky problems.

Following this course you will be able to:

• Find appropriate funding for your particular project
• Understand the bidding process
• Bid successfully for the funding on offer

Why is this training for you?

AMT’s Academy training draws on its extensive experience of working with community groups and town and parish councils in small towns and villages across the country for the past 14 years.

Our Finding Funding training is specifically designed for such groups and has proved to be extremely popular.

When?

Wednesday 15 June 2011
9.30am – 1.00pm

Where?

Rural Arts, The Courthouse, Thirsk, YO7 1QS

• Download directions and parking information here {opens pdf}

How much?

North Yorkshire County Council has kindly subsidised this training which means we can offer a special price of just £15 per person.  This event is only open to attendees from Yorkshire & Humber.

Places are limited, however, so we can only accept a maximum of two bookings per organisation. Please book as soon as possible as we expect this training to be full long before the date.

For further information contact Susannah Maxwell, Action for Market Towns Administrator at susannah.maxwell@towns.org.uk. or on 01284 756567

What next?

• Find out more about the Market Towns Academy
• Share ideas on financing your market town projects in the AMT Forum

This event forms part of a 4-year programme of events, joint funded by AMT, the Big Lottery Fund and North Yorkshire County Council. The aim of the events is to give towns:

• the skills they need to make their towns sustainable
• valuable opportunities to learn from best practice and from each other

Insights from marketing specialist

This event was facilitated by Susan Briggs, a North Yorkshire-based marketing specialist, who gave a practical insight into low cost, effective marketing activities, including:

• Deciding on a Unique Selling Point (USP)
• Which promotional tools work best, and when?
• Quick, simple ways to market on the web
• Writing press releases to get no-cost publicity and
• Easy fast ways to massively improve print material – and do it without a big budget

Susan’s presentations certainly hit the spot, with delegates describing them as ‘sensational’ and ‘first class’ on their evaluation forms.

Susan is offering further support through her free online masterclass and ‘how to’ articles.  For details see: www.tourismknowhow.com

Practical example from Congleton Beartown

A good example of a town that had gone through the process of identifying its USP, and had developed a brand to promote it came in the shape of Congleton. Margaret Williams and Dawn Gibbons gave an inspiring and enthusiastic presentation about Congleton Beartown.

• See the Congleton Beartown presentation here (opens pdf in new window)

One fascinating aspect of the Congleton experience was that they had commissioned a Feng Shui study of the town, so they could really understand how local residents, businesses and visitors felt about the town’s current offer.

• Download the Feng Shui report on Congleton Town here (opens pdf in new window)

Delegates left the event enthused and full of new ideas, with 100% of delegates who completed evaluation forms reporting that they now had a much better idea how to improve the marketing of their towns.

What next?

• Find out about other Networking Events
• Find out about Training Events

A social enterprise in Settle, North Yorkshire which generates green electricity with all profits going to the community has won the Yorkshire and Humber regional prize in the prestigious Market Town Awards and will now go head-to-head with projects from seven other regions in the National Market Town Awards.

Settle Hydro Ltd is Yorkshire’s first community benefit hydro electricity company. It will produce about 150,000kw of clean green renewable energy per annum, sold into the national grid, producing a sustainable income. The scheme involved installing an Archimedes screw alongside an existing weir.

Funded by a mix of grants, an Industrial and Providence Society share issue, and a bank loan, Settle Hydro was started and is run by a team of dedicated and business-minded volunteers. It will produce an income for the Settle community for at least the next 50 years, and is proving a role model for other communities.

The judges commented that the project was very strong on community involvement, innovation and the viability of the funding package. They said it was a well conceived and well implemented project with community benefits.

Settle Hydro won the Partnership and Strategic Working Category in the regional Market Town Awards and was also the overall regional winner. The award was presented at a ceremony in Todmorden by the Mayor of Todmorden, Cllr Margareta Holmstedt.  They now go head-to-head with other regional winners to compete for the National Market Town Award at the Action for Market Towns Convention in Chippenham, Wiltshire on October 12.

Other winners were:

Environment and Culture Category – The Junction, Goole, East Yorkshire for a £3million  landmark community, arts and civic building to provide  a catalyst for the creation of jobs, training opportunities and the broader regeneration of Goole market and the town centre. The project was led by Goole Town Council.

Business and Economy Category – Slaithwaite Community Shop, West Yorkshire. This is a community-owned shop which was set-up when an existing greengrocer was about to go out of business. It was established as an Industrial and Provident Society and has raised over £25,000 in share capital from the local community.  The shop promotes local food, is thriving and continues to increase its sales and impact on the small town centre.

Social and Community Category – Hudswell Community Pub, North Yorkshire for establishing a co-operative to buy and operate the village pub, which had closed down with no prospect of a buyer. The George and Dragon will be run for the benefit of the residents of the village and of visitors to the area, providing services to the village and to visitors that will support other local businesses and tourism within Swaledale.  Most importantly it will put the heart back into the village and provide a place for social gatherings, cultural activities, a place to meet people, exchange information and it will promote a cohesive and friendly community in Hudswell.

The Yorkshire and Humber Market Town Awards are part of the National Market Town Awards which each year celebrate the great variety of volunteer-led projects which are helping to regenerate and sustain small towns throughout the country. The Awards are organised by Action for Market Towns, the national organization with over 400 towns in membership which supports the regeneration and vitality of small towns.

Ends

For further press information on the market town awards, please contact: John Pole on 01430 441557. E-mail: john.pole@towns.org.uk

To contact Settle Hydro, ring Ann Harding on 01729 812155

To contact The Junction, Goole, ring Charlie Studdy on 01405 763652

To contact Slaithwaite Community Shop, ring Camilla Govan on 01484 844554

To contact Hudswell Community Pub ring Martin Booth on 07903 872635