Community Group of the Year
Winner: Joint Winners Salisbury Community Hub for Ukraine & Swindon & Wiltshire Pride
Sponsored by:
Winner
Salisbury Community Hub for Ukraine
This group of remarkable volunteers worked with dedication and innovation to ease
the plight of the Ukrainian guests living in Wiltshire. One of the remarkable aspects of the hub has been its ability to forge links and partnerships within the community and to continually look ahead and adapt to a constantly evolving situation, both in terms of legislation, council support and the changing needs of the community. For the hub team the greatest reward of the project has been to witness the Ukrainians finding their own voice and place in Salisbury and to gradually find their own independence within the community and with each other.
Winner
Swindon & Wiltshire Pride
The charity promotes equality and diversity and is entirely run by volunteers. Its committee work tirelessly throughout the year to educate and celebrate the community, doing this all within their free time. It recently launched Pride Hub, where all profits go back into the charity and have also produced a LGBTQIA support guide for distribution to schools, libraries, local prides and companies. It provides vital safe, open and understanding environments where often isolated, vulnerable, discriminated against individuals can find support and a community of like-minded souls ready to accept them exactly as they are, often for the first time in their lives.
Third Place
Sounds Better CIC
Teacher/Coach of the Year
Winner: Clair Murphy
Sponsored by:
Winner
Clair Murphy
Clair Murphy is the amazing head coach for artistic swimming in Calne and has coached hundreds of swimmers over the nearly 30 years. Alongside raising a family and her busy career as a senior midwife her awe-inspiring commitment to artistic swimming and the club has never wavered. Clair is now a national level qualified judge and head coach of the club and spends much time helping all the swimmers reach their potential.
Second Place
Pollyann Tanner
Third Place
Steve Applegate
Business of the Year
Winner: Cameo
Sponsored by:
Winner
Cameo
Lynda Hutton has been running this rural hair salon since 1985, in this time she and her team have trained both young and mature apprentices, with some remaining at the salon for more than 20 years. Over the years the salon has expanded to incorporate the hair care and trichology clinic treating patients for hair loss and scalp conditions, with people coming from as far away as Europe and the USA. In 2019 Lynda received the Outstanding Service to Trichology and Oncology Award at the Institute of Medicine in London for making wigs for chemotherapy and alopecia patients. She is the only wig fitter at Swindon, Chippenham and Bath hospitals. The salon also supports the Little Princess Trust, the charity providing free real hair wigs to children and young people.
Second Place
Central Fruits
Third place
Three Trees Farm Shop & Café
Independent Food/Drink Producer of the Year
Winner: Downton Distillery
Winner
Downton Distillery
Community, environment, people and adventure are the four pillars on which Downton Distillery prides itself. Over the past year it has forged new working partnerships with Naked Jams, Cranborne Chase Cidery and Domain Hugo vineyard. Some of the new spirits and produce use by-products that would be considered waste. Two products have already won national awards, these are its Nocino and the Chardonnay vodka, which is in a fully recycled bottle and 100 per cent sustainable. It has also created a spirit for the Wiltshire Great Bustard conservation group, with profits going to the charity.
The distillery’s focus this year has been on rewilding juniper to the Wiltshire Downs and to reduce glassware being thrown out by offering a refill pack scheme.
Second Place
Padfield Porkies
Third Place
Three Daggers Brewery
Conservation Project of the Year
Winner: Nurturing Nature – Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre
Sponsored by:
Winner
Nurturing Nature – Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre
Part of the wider Chase & Chalke Landscape Partnership project based on the Cranborne Chase National Landscape, the Nurturing Nature project is being delivered by the Wiltshire Biological Records Centre. The aim is to train those with little or no experience in wildlife surveying to become biological recorders on the Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It has actively been forming partnerships with local groups, charities, and county recorders, so that once the project comes to an end this year, the volunteers are connected to wider groups to support their journey in the nature world.
Charity of the Year
Winner: Wiltshire Treehouse
Sponsored by:
Winner
Wiltshire Treehouse
The charity supports bereaved children and young people who are living or educated within Swindon and Wiltshire. In 2023 it supported 307 children and young people, along with 760 parents, carers and siblings. As the only provider of in-person bereavement support across Swindon and Wiltshire, the charity has more than 10 years of experience of making a positive difference to the children, young people and families it supports. In addition to its everyday work, Treehouse provides bereavement by suicide support sessions within local schools.
Second Place
Ipsum Mental Health Charity
Third Place
Doing it for Dan
Pub of the Year
Winner: The Weavers
Sponsored by:
Winner
The Weavers
The Weavers is a pub with a difference because of the part it plays in its community through its ownership by the Fairfield Trust. The trust is a charity dedicated to providing training, employment and support opportunities for young people with learning and physical disabilities.
The newly refurbished pub, which opens six days a week offering breakfast, lunch and dinner, offers a realistic training environment for hospitality students at nearby Fairfield College. The support and guidance they receive from experienced professionals not only gives them valuable skills and a sense of purpose, but ensures good quality local food and drinks in comfortable surroundings for customers.
Second Place
The Dumb Post Inn
Third Place
The Bell Inn
The Green Business Award
Winner: New Baginnings
Sponsored by:
Winner
New Baginnings
Lisa Crick takes end of life leather sofas and turns them into stylish bags. The carcase is stripped of foam and padding and then offered up for free, the metal is taken to the local scrap yard and in return she gets its old seatbelts, which are used in the Sling Bags. Lisa sources sofas from house movers, waste collectors, an upholsterer and from the public.
She sells the bags through social media, her website, markets and festivals - where it is as much about the sale as it is about waste awareness.
Lisa’s bags were featured on The Drew Barrymore Show in America which has led to a garden shed hobby growing into a global business. She now has a small team of outworkers which enables her to salvage more sofas and waste a little bit less.
Second Place
Hollychocs
Third Place
Made by SJP
Young Entrepreneur of the Year
Winner: Joint Winners Jess Falding & Ben Pinniger
Sponsored by:
Winner
Jess Falding
When Jess created a range of all-natural soap bars, Cabin & Cowshed Soap Co was born. Her soap bars are handmade, using a base of oils and butters, essential oil blends for scent and a variety of botanical infusions which work to nourish the skin. For two years she worked full time alongside running the business, trading at a number of weekend markets on her days off. In 2022 she took her biggest risk yet and quit her job to open her first retail shop which is proving to be a great success.
Winner
Ben Pinniger
Ben was a previous winner of this award in 2015 when, aged just 21, he launched BP Milling. Since then, he has grown the business which produces sustainable fish feed alternatives to fisheries. He supplies cereal/vegetable-based feeds which are more affordable, ethical, and far less harmful to water quality. With an estimated annual turnover of £500k in 2023, he is supplying around 350 tonnes per year with more diversified products, including a natural remedy for fish health which is endorsed by the Environment Agency.
Third Place
Jack Miller
Young Sports Personality of the Year
Winner: Emily McGrogan
Sponsored by:
Winner
Emily McGrogan
Emily began her football journey with Swindon Town Football Club Community Foundation at the age of five and progressed through the girls’ Centre of Excellence and on to the C6 Football Education programme. Emily was a naturally talented player from an early age and is fully dedicated and committed to her training and matches. She made her debut for Swindon Town Women’s first team at the age of 16 and was called up to an England U18 training camp.
Emily is now 18 and is the regular first team goalkeeper for Swindon Town Women.
Second Place
Evan Molloy
Second Place
Connor Sanderson
Independent Retailer of the Year, Incorporating Farm/Village Shop
Winner: Three Trees Farm Shop & Café
Sponsored by:
Winner
Three Trees Farm Shop & Café
This is a small family run rural business where the meat used on the butchery counter and in the cafe is sourced from the family farm. A range of baked and deli goods are produced in the on-site kitchen which are then sold in the shop and deli. Three Trees’ own products are supplemented by a large range of produce, with much sourced from local suppliers. The team believe in cultivating a family feel with good, old-fashioned customer service and by building a rapport with their customers.
Second place
Salisbury Flower Shed
Local Hero of the Year
Winner: Valeriy Melnik
Sponsored by:
Winner
Valeriy Melnik
Valeriy came to the UK from Ukraine 15 years ago, together with his wife, Natasha, and they now have a 15-year-old son, Ivan.
He is the lead care home manager at Clarendon House in Salisbury, where he looks after a group of adults with a range of disabilities.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, he set up a WhatsApp group to support Ukrainian families arriving in Salisbury and surrounding villages. There are currently 189 members with 150 Ukrainian families in our community.
He supports newly arrived families who are in need of information and a social support group. He helps them to find accommodation, schools, medical services and hospital appointments, as well as assisting with furniture removals, registration of documents, translations, finding a car or a garage mechanic. The list is endless.
He is utterly dependable and never says no to anything or anyone. He is always cheerful and deeply caring of every single member of the Salisbury Community Hub for Ukraine, whether British, Ukrainian or any other nationality.
Apprentice of the Year
Winner: Emma Clinch
Sponsored by:
Winner
Emma Clinch
Emma Clinch joined the café team at the Three Trees Farm Shop in Chiseldon in January last year and completed the Level 2 Commiss Chef apprenticeship training in the summer. She has a natural talent in the kitchen and takes pride in her work as she works independently using her own initiative and takes charge when the head chef and sous chef are away.
Third Place
Laura Stapleton
The Arts, Culture & Music Award
Winner: Salisbury Musical Society
Sponsored by:
Winner
Salisbury Musical Society
Founded in 1923, SMS is a mixed auditioned choir of more than 120 adult voices. It usually performs three concerts a year. It uses professional soloists, but it also involves local choirs, school choirs and the cathedral choristers and lay vicars in its larger performances. It runs a bursary scheme where those aged between 18 and 29 can
sing with the choir for a year. A charity for more than 50 years, its aim is to promote, improve, develop and maintain public education in and appreciation of the art and science of music in all its aspects by the presentation of public concerts. It is entirely self-sufficient, receiving no public grants or money.
Second Place
Wiltshire Wailers
Third Place
The Peacocks Arts Trail
Lifetime Achievement
Winner: Sandie Webb
Sponsored by:
Winner
Sandie Webb
Sandie Webb has been a passionate advocate for the community of Chippenham for more than 30 years through her deep involvement in several town organisations covering sport, leisure, community, politics and business.
Her dedication and refusal to take notice of the odds stacked against her has resulted in at least two huge legacies for the town in the shape of Stanley Park sports ground and the continued existence of Chippenham Town Football Club.
She is well known for getting up at 4am to write emails just so she can fit everything into her day and has also been a driving force behind the Chippenham Community Town Team, a Wiltshire councillor, a president of the carnival committee and was involved in the launch of the town’s shop mobility scheme – to name just a few of the bodies, campaigns and events she has supported.
The Pride of Wiltshire Award
Winner: HM Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire Sarah Rose Troughton
Sponsored by:
Winner
HM Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire Sarah Rose Troughton
In February 2012, Sarah Rose Troughton was appointed Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Wiltshire. The first woman to take on the role in 461 years.
From her first major engagement in May 2012, accompanying the late Queen at the Diamond Jubilee event in Salisbury to the 130 engagements undertaken every year, now as The King’s representative, we as a county are fortunate to benefit every day from Sarah’s commitment and dedication to the role.
Over the last 12 years, she has supported members of the Royal Family on visits to the county. Alongside royal duties, she attends a wide range of events covering the length and breadth of Wiltshire and Swindon, sometimes several in one day. These include citizenship ceremonies, charity events, military briefings, opening of new venues, receptions, civic mayoral events, Remembrance services and much more.
She is patron of many Wiltshire charities including Swindon Domestic Abuse Support Service, Wiltshire Community Foundation and the Prospect Hospice.
In 2022 Sarah was appointed a Queen’s Companion and was also honoured to receive Dame of the Venerable Order of the St John in an investiture in 2021.