News Story

CLUTCH Clubs scoop local website awards

Jane Whild, Tuesday 28 May 2002

Congratulations to the Greenleas Churches and Husborne Crawley CLUTCH Clubs who have scooped first and second prizes in Bedfordshire Local History Association’s Website Competition 2002.

In addition to the merits of their historical content, entries were judged against a broad range of criteria (concept, content, design, architecture and accessibility) with the intention of finding the site that communicated their content in the best way.

First prize went to Greenleas Churches CLUTCH Club. Their project Linslade Churches and Chapels was well suited to the needs of their target audience (children aged 7-9). The panel concluded that the site demonstrated an excellent use of a variety of media and encouraged active participation on the part of the user.

Runners up were Husborne Crawley CLUTCH Club and their project The Changing times of an English Village was highly commended. The panel was extremely impressed with the range and detail of the content, and with the quality of the original research underpinning it.

The CLUTCH Clubs were a 3-year Lottery-funded Millennium Award Scheme which was run by the Open University in partnership with the Living Archive. During the scheme 300 parents around Milton Keynes worked in small groups to carry out local history projects. Clubs met and worked in their children’s schools, and received IT training to enable them to publish their findings on the web. Although the scheme ended in October 2001, many groups continue to work on their projects and to use their new skills for the benefit of their schools and communities. The 60 projects which were produced during the scheme are accessible from the CLUTCH Club home page: