200 pubs enter PubAid awards
PubAid’s annual Community Pub Hero Awards have closed after receiving 200 entries from pubs and MPs nominating locals in their constituencies.
The awards, running for the fourth year, are sponsored by Matthew Clark and run with the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group (APPBG). This year, PubAid refreshed the scheme by offering two categories for pubs – Community Support Hero or Charity Fundraising Hero and a new Community Regular Hero where pubs can nominate a supportive customer. The response level is a sizeable uplift on the 115 entries in 2021.
The list of entrants spans the UK and includes independent, managed and L&T pubs. Judging is underway and a list of finalists for each category will be published in January. All finalists will be invited, with their MP, to attend a reception in London in early 2023, where the three overall winners will be announced.
PubAid co-founder Des O’Flanagan said: “We are delighted with this response; despite having a cost of living crisis and staff shortages to deal with, pubs have made time to enter these Awards. We’re genuinely honoured and will reward their efforts by ensuring entries are carefully considered by our judges.
“The entries this year are again of a high standard, and clearly demonstrate that pubs are a force for good in their communities. It is clearly going to be a tough task to choose our finalists and then the winners.”
John Steele, Trade Marketing Director, Matthew Clark added: “We have been very happy to support the Community Pub Hero Awards since launch. Pubs truly are heroes in their communities and this scheme gives them well-deserved recognition. We look forward to naming the finalists and winners of this year’s competition.”
The Rt Hon Alun Cairns MP, Chairman of the APPBG, said: “At a time when there has been plenty going on at Westminster, to receive 70 pub nominations from MPs is an excellent result. This level of engagement clearly shows that MPs across the country see the value of pubs as hubs of community and charity support in their constituencies.”
Entries are being judged by the PubAid Steering Group of.20 senior people from the pub industry. Shortlisted pubs in the Community Support and Charity Fundraising categories, alongside the finalist Community Regular Heroes, will be published in January 2023.
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Issued on behalf of PubAid
For further information: Ros Shiel at ros@shielporter.com / 07841 694137
NOTES TO EDITORS
Community Pub Hero Awards: PubAid launched its Charity Fundraiser Pub Awards in 2018, with sponsorship from C&C and support from the All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group. The awards ran again in 2019, sponsored by Matthew Clark, and in 2020, with pubs closed for months due to Covid, they were reshaped and renamed as the Community Pub Hero Awards. The competition, rewarding pubs’ community support during lockdown, attracted 115 entries, including 60 from MPs who nominated pubs in their constituencies. Two overall winners, The Horse & Jockey in Melling, Merseyside and the Portsmouth Arms in Basingstoke, were announced in spring 2021.
PubAid is a working party created in 2009 to promote UK pubs as a force for good in their communities, sharing the message that they raise over £100m per year for charities and contribute £40 million to grassroots sport. PubAid runs the annual World’s Biggest Pub Quiz, which has raised £750,000 since its launch in 2016, the Community Pub Hero Awards and, launched in early 2022, the Grassroots Sports Champions, in association with Sky, to recognise pubs’ support for local sports.
The PubAid steering group is led by co-founder Des O’Flanagan and includes a number of well-known figures from the pub world, who lend their time and other resources to help spread the positive messages about pubs’ role at the heart of their communities.
Matthew Clark is a leading national drinks wholesaler with over 200 years’ experience supplying drink products, hospitality training, labour management and marketing support to over 16,000 On-Trade premises in the UK.
The All-Party Parliamentary Beer Group was set up in 1993 and has a membership of over 350 MPs and Peers. The Beer Group’s objectives are to broaden recognition of the enormous contribution of brewing and pubs to the UK economy from grain to glass – and to celebrate the unique role that beer and pubs play in our society
Press release from Shiel Porter.
For further information: Ros Shiel at ros@shielporter.com / 07841 694137