So… Friday night I did indeed go to London with my best pal Karen to attend the awards ceremony for the Christian Blog and Web Awards. We went to a mini-St. Paul’s Cathedral, a church in London called St. Stephen’s Walbrook. Champagne reception kicked off the evening followed by a 3 course dinner: Goats cheese salady thing, fillet of beef with safron rice and spinach, and creme brulee and strawberies for pudding, alond with nice coffee and plenty of wine.
Sat next to some guys from Release International, up for best news site, and Andy Frost from Share Jesus International. The awards were opened by Richard Chartres, Bishop of London, and then hosted by Jeff Lucas and Maria Toth.
I was up for best young Christian blog (under 25) – and I won – although I don’t know if anyone else actually entered?! So I was the proud recepient of a glass trophy and a Nintendo Wii… so I set that up today and have been boxing, golfing, bowling, and playing baseball and tennis. I needed to get another controller, which was ridiculously expensive, but at least I didn’t have to pay for the Wii (thanks to the Evangelical Alliance)!
I actually already knew I’d won, so it was no surprise… which meant I was able to prepare a joke for the acceptance speech – it was a joke based on sarcasm, the impact was lost as I feel the audience thought I was being serious! Although BIG surprise was the final award – best church website (£1000 prize) – to my shock the (unfinished) Bishop Hannington site (which I have to change because some people at church don’t like black) was shortlist as one of 5 finalists!! It’s the biggest award with by far the most entries, in some ways more impressed to get to the final 5 of the church one than to win the young blogger!
Other awards… I can’t really remember who won, they weren’t written down anywhere – thebandwithnoname won the best music site, and UCCF won the most creative site with Theology Network. Hopefully Premier will put the list on the website next week. Adrian Warnock was runner up for the best leadership blog – afterwards he approached me and made rude comment about my coke-belly, all good banter.
Hopefully there’ll be some picture or video content from the event courtesey of Premier coming soon.
That’s fantastic – a Wii! Can you blog from that? Well done mate!
I entered the young Christian blog category with my site All4God (www.all4god.co.uk) so you beat at least one site. Feel free to check out my site if you get a chance, and congratulations on your win. (i already have a wii anyway… lol)