Audlem's Saturday success

Almost a decade ago, at an event in Nantwich, a well-known councillor said: "If only we could bottle Audlem's community spirit and use it elsewhere." And this was shortly after, in a national competition run by the government department Defra, Audlem had been chosen as the best community in England.

This Saturday's success – as reported yesterday under the teasing headline 'Audlem comes up Trump' – brought back memories of that comment a decade ago.

Cheshire East had announced that £30,000 of health related funding would be allocated by a public vote. The snag was that the voting would take place in Nantwich Civic Hall and votes would only count if cast on the day after listening to all the bids.

Some feared that the location would hand a massive advantage to Nantwich projects. Somehow, Audlem would need a good turnout of local residents prepared to give their Saturday morning up to help the community.

Audlem organisations – APHAx, ADCA and ADAPT – had all submitted bids and were looking for over £12,000. But would anyone from Nantwich support these projects. There was only one answer – Audlem needed many locals there if we were to stand a chance.

Amazingly, AudlemOnline's reporter reckoned approaching half of the attendees were from Audlem, a superb effort. Yes. there were members of the bidding organisations but many others made the journey too. The result, all three of the Audlem projects received the money they were asking for.

I suspect if that Nantwich councillor was there on Saturday, he may have recalled that 'bottling' comment and would have been full of admiration, and perhaps a little envy, at the quite remarkable community spirit displayed by Audlem once again.

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