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- Anna Strutt receiving award in 2017
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- Bill Butler presenting award to winner Luke Whitehead
The Spirit of Try Angle Awards were introduced in 1994 by KCC Youth Worker Bill Butler to raise the profile of people aged 11-18 (or have additional needs up to 25) who really try, often with none or little recognition and in difficult circumstances, to do their best.
A variety of eight different categories ranging from arts, music and sport to community action, personal development and positive interventions are put out to the county public who can nominate any young person for an award.
The Spirit of Try Angle Awards has celebrated many inspirational individuals and collective groups and CommunityAd got in touch with Bill who delved into the history of the Spirit of the Try Angle; recalling its birth in Thanet, the incredible people he has met and the future goals he has for the awards…
What made you come up with the idea of Try Angle and have you been surprised at how much it has grown and been successful over the last 27 years?
During the time I was the Area Youth Worker in Thanet (working from Concorde Youth Centre in Ramsgate), I was able to strike up some strong “Partnership” working arrangements with the Headteachers of the 11 Secondary Schools in the District and colleagues from several different agencies including KCC Social Services, The Thanet Youth Offending Team, The Education Welfare Service, Thanet District Council, Kent Police and others.
After a £100 donation from then Kent Police Area Commander in Thanet Peter Gammon, others came on board and here we are 27 years later, having celebrated the Positive Efforts of thousands of Young People through “The Try Angle Awards” and the benefits that this recognition – of so many of these otherwise un-recognised efforts – brought recognition and barriers slowly started to come down.
It was interesting that, within a very few years too, “The Diana Awards” with similar aims and other national “Award Schemes” were born. It was probably in Thanet, however, where it all began. We had support from our 1st year from the local press. As the awards spread around Kent, however, the Mirror Newspaper Group (of which The Thanet Gazette was a local publication) introduced the “Children of Courage Awards” with much bigger budgets than the “Try Angle Awards” could ever have dreamt of. These are now known as “Pride of Britain Awards”. Coincidence or “conceived in Thanet”?
Do you have any major highlights that have stayed in your mind throughout the past 27 years?
One of the earliest highlights in terms of memories for me came after having asked a local Headteacher in Ramsgate if she would be attending our first ever Try Angle Awards Event in the Pfizer Lecture Theatre in Sandwich. One of her pupils was to receive a “Young Carers Award”, some time before the concept of “Young Carers” had ever been fully recognised in any real way at all.
At first, she was very cross (as Headteachers often can be) and started to tell me that this particular pupil didn’t deserve an Award! Her behaviour was apparently terrible and she was likely to be excluding this particular pupil, whose behaviour was apparently very difficult and she constantly refused to attend “Detentions” after school!
I pointed out that this particular pupil had been Nominated for a “Young Carers Award” as she had to care for her mother and her younger siblings, having to take them to school in the mornings (sometimes making her late for school herself) and she also had to pick them up after school to get them home from primary school. This was the reason she was often late and there was no way she could stay for “Detentions!”
The Headteacher had absolutely no idea about these family circumstances and – in those day – we did not have Young Carers Support Groups as are now in place. Once the school discovered her circumstance, “multi-agency” plans were put in place and Claire did pretty well from that day onwards.