This is the important, serious bit...

Categories

There are 8 categories in the Awards - Young Farmer, Sporting Achiever, Community Support, Charity, Cultural Achiever, Bravery, Environmental and Educational Achievement. This link will take you straight to the entry page click here.

Entry

To enter the awards you have to complete an application form, which you can do online or by post. There is an online entry form on this site as well as a downloadable PDF that you can complete and post in to the address on the form. The entry forms ask different questions for each category, so make sure you get the right one. Online and PDF entry forms can be found here.

You can either enter yourself, your group or your team for an award or, if you are someone's friend, teacher, coach etc., you can nominate them for an award. We'd recommend that before you complete an entry form you read or print off a hard copy of the PDF to familiarise yourself with the questions and to help you prepare your answers. The number of words allowed for each answer is limited so you may want to have a practice filling out a form first.

When you are ready simply complete the online or hard copy form and submit it to us before the entry closing date.

Permission

We know some people are bashful and modest about their achievements but whether you are nominating yourself, or someone else, you must have the permission of the parent or guardian of the person being nominated to do so if they are under the age of 18 AND the person you are nominating of course.

Closing Date

The closing date for entries is 16 December 2009

Receipt of Entries

We will acknowledge receipt of your entry so you know we have it - if you don't hear back from us then use the Contact & Help page to get in touch, as we may not have received your entry for technical reasons.

Judging

All the entries will be judged by a judging panel.  For details of the judging/judges click here.

Awards Event

All shortlisted entries in each category will be invited to a Gala Awards Evening on Tuesday 16 February 2010 (during half-term school holiday) where the winners will be announced.

Publicity

All the category winners will be asked to participate in event publicity, and to do so we will require the permission of you and your parent/guardian - this is covered in the entry form.

After the event we will also want to follow up with each of the winners to see how their prize fund has been of benefit to their or other people's lives, so we will keep in touch with all category winners and follow their story.

Bernard Matthews employees or their family members cannot be entered for a Bernard Matthews Youth Award.