Category Archives: Awards

Any community project is the outcome of the effort that everyone has put in over the years. It is however nice to have some recognition for the community and for individual efforts, and we seem to be achieving just that. The biggest payback of course is in the final result for ourselves and for any inspiration and help we can pay forward to other communities.

2020 Scottish Rural Awards – Finalist

We are of course very pleased to be selected as a finalist for the 2020 Scottish Rural Awards, in the entirely unsurprising category of: Best Countryside Digital Innovator. This is further recognition, if any were needed, of the commitment and determination of our local community to bring our area to the global forefront of digital connectivity.

The awards are announced at the beginning of April 2020, so we’ll just have to live with the suspense until then.

Stirling Provost’s Civic Awards

We’re pleased (and gratified, no less) that Balquhidder Community Broadband’s founders, Richard Harris and David Johnston, have each been honoured with a Special Achievement Award in 2018’s Stirling Provost’s Civic Awards.

The presentation took place on 26 October, at a dinner in the historic surroundings of the Great Hall of Stirling Castle, where Kings, Queens and nobility have eaten, drunk, made merry and murdered each other for 800 years. This was a slightly more civilised affair, however, with the only notable casualties being the Haggis and Chickens who were on the night’s menu.

INCA Award – Best Community Project

INCA – the Independent Networks Co-operative Association – is the body representing all independent, community and other alternative network (alt-net) operators in the UK.

At their 2018 Awards in London on 5th November, we’re very pleased to say that we took the award for Best Community Project. We regard that as recognition of the huge effort by the community, individuals and our ISP partners, Bogons, that have gone into the founding, planning, fund-raising, design and doing of our network. So all we’ve got to do now is get the ties off, get back out into the fields and keep digging – we’re not finished yet! And congratulations to all the other award winners for helping pull the UK into the twenty-first century, despite all the blockers put in the way by incumbent operators and egregious officialdom.

BCB named as one of Scotland’s Top Rural Innovators

Balquhidder Community Broadband has been named as one of five examples of outstanding rural innovation in Scotland, after  winning the Transport and Infrastructure category of the 2018 Scottish Rural Innovators Awards.

Held every two years, the awards are organised and hosted by Scottish Rural Action to highlight excellence in rural innovation in meeting the needs of rural communities. The winning projects will all be showcased at the Scottish Rural Parliament which is being held in Stranraer from 14-16 November.

Along with last week’s Stirling Provost’s Civic award, it’s good that we’re getting at degree of recognition outside the immediate industry for the dozen years of campaigning and hard work that have got us all to where we are now.

Here is Scottish Rural Action’s press release in full…

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