London Borough Competition


 

At the heart of the London Parade there is a competition between the London Boroughs called 'The Let's Help London Challenge'.
Every year since 1997 each of London's 31 Boroughs along with the City of Westminster has been invited to enter the Parade with an act, float, or other form of entertainment or exhibit that demonstrates a facet of the Borough.  With so many wonderfully diverse and exciting parts of London the Borough entries in 'The Let's Help London Challenge' form one of the great highlights of the Parade.
The Boroughs are all competing for a share of the big charity prize pot which in recent years has reached £ 40,000. Let's Help London Challenge prizes have made huge differences to a multitude of local London charities since 1997. In fact the Parade's efforts for charity began long before the Borough Challenge was created. Every year since the parade's inception a big cheque has been presented by the Parade to a local or national charity. With the annual street collection taken into account well over a million pounds has already been raised or donated by London's New Year's Day Parade since 1987.


The 2012 Winners

Joint 1st place: The City of Westminster & The London Borough of Merton.
3rd place: The Lonodn Borough of Brent
4th place: The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham
5th place: The London Borough of Redbridge.
6th place: The London Borough of Croydon
7th place: The Royal Borough of Kingston Upon Thames
8th place: The London Borough of Barking and Dagenham
9th place: The London Borough of Enfield
10th place: The London Borough of Hounslow
11th place: The London Borough of Waltham Forest
12th place: The London Borough of Lambeth.



The 2012 'Let's Help London Challenge'  

I'm sure our chosen theme for 2012 does not come as a surprise to any of you! 'The Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee'. We really hope all Boroughs will be taking part this year and are eagerly awaiting your entries.

The judges for 2012 will be placed  in the finale performance arena at the end of the Parade route just alongside Parliament Square so all of the boroughs will have to keep their entry sharp right up to the end of the Parade. The international panel of judges comprised of foreign Ambassadors and High Commissioners and chaired by Deputy Lieutenant Roger Bramble will be marking boroughs on the following criteria. The maximum amount of points available is 100.
How well the theme is incorporated into the entry - maximum 30 points
How well the entry represents your Borough/Community - maximum 30 points
How well the entry entertains the street audience and judges - maximum 30 points
Effort in the creation of the entry - maximum 15 points
Originality of the entry - maximum 15 points

 Finally don't forget the prizes are only a part of the charity fund raising picture. These boroughs are entertaining you to a fabulous feast of entertainment for a full three hours and for free. When you think something is good show it by digging into your pocket and contributing to the street collection that will be made throughout the Parade.
 

 

2011 Winners


2011 saw the return of Westminster to the winners podium. The City of Westminster, the host Borough of the London Parade scored highest marks from the International Panel of Adjudicators and won top prize of £ 7,500 with their float 'Alice in wonderland' with fabulous costumes of Wonderland characters worn by a large number of Westminster councillors, fantastic singing and dancing from performers from the Sylvia Young Theatre School, and a 25th birthday cake complete with white rabbit to mark out 25 year event. Following closely on Westminsters heals were Brent in second place, winning £6,000 for the Mayoral charities. Participating from Brent were the Brent Youth Volunteers and Brent Youth Parliament, Alperton Community School and Clairmont and Kingsbury High Schools. The entry celebrated the cultural diversity and the youth diversity of Brent throguh costumes, dancing and a terrific large silver arch inspired by Wembly Stadium. In third place and winning £5,000 were Ealing represented by South Connections, frequent recipients of a prize in the 'Lets Help London Challenge' This year they too were celebrating their 25th anniversary and their spectacular costurmes aimed to show the mix of ideas that had inspired them over the course of 25 years.

A true show stopper was Redbridge's entry awarded 4th place by the judges, and earning a very well deserved £4,000. The entry 'Silver Bells and Cockle Shells' was complete with music, bells, shells and Mary morris dancers, and cleverly tapped into the silver theme.  In 5th place and winning £3.000 this year were Enfield, who consistenly have strong entries in the parade, and this year did not disappoint with Art Start presenting 'Star of the Show' a sparkling, celestial circus to the streets of London.

In 6th place for the 2nd year running was Barking and Dagenham  with their entry 'A Wintery Tale'. Their success in the competition meant £2,000 to the Mayor's charity Help for Heroes. 7th, 8th and 9th places each winning
£ 1,500 went to Hammersmith and Fulham Richmond and Havering respectively. Hammersmith's huge entry featured circus performers from Albert and Friends Instant Circus, representatives from the Mayhew Animal Home and RNLI Lifeboats Association, and performers from Creative Kidz and Co, all strong organsisations in the Borough. Richmond's entry of 'Rochmond Funky Stars' involved young people from the Groove Academy and Gemini Dancers performing a variety of popular funk, pop and soul music, and raising money for the Shooting Star Children's Hospice. For their entry Havering ran a competition for school children letting them come up with a design for the float, won by Josephone Hodsall age 10 of a huge birthday cake and balloons to celebrate our 25 years.

In 10th place this year were Islington winning £1000 for Islington Play Association and seeing the Mayor even customise her robes to make them silver in line with the theme. In 11th place were Haringeywith the Hornsey Carnival Float representing the National Carnival Guild. 12th place was Sutton also winning £1000 with an entry based on One thousand and One Night Stories from Aladdin. In 12th place and again receiving £1000 were The international panel of judges were only asked to make 12 awards but such was the quality of talent and entertainment provided by London's Boroughs that the organisers decided to make two further awards (and cash prizes). The first 'Organisers Special Award' went to Lambeth for their excellent float celebrating Brixton Markets, and the second to Harrow for their creative float, cleverly incorporating the silver theme 'Every Cloud has a Silver Lining'.

Past Winners


The very first winner was Havering. They scooped £ 5,000 for their first place in 1997 with a float celebrating the 750th anniversary of the Romford market. In 1998 the Boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham joined together to celebrate the launch of the Docklands Light Railway. 'The Light Fantastic', a DLR train powered through the parade route by liveried rollerbladers was a hugely entertaining and original first place winner. 1999 saw Redbridge at the top of the winners podium for the first time with their entry 'Hold The Front Page', a float that depicted all aspects of the Borough, including a wartime Winston Churchill.
In Millennium Year, 2000, it was hugely appropriate that the winners should be the London Borough of Southwark with their outstanding entry entitled 'Southwark World Village 2000', celebrating Southwark's multi cultural society and featuring representations from 120 different nationalities! In 2001 it was finally the turn of Sutton, tremendous supporters of the Parade every year, to win first place with an imaginative entry centred around fashion and recycling. In 2002 Redbridge was back to win first place with an entry entitled 'Nursery Rhyme Memories' in which favourite characters came to life to brighten the start of Her Majesty's Golden Jubilee Year.
 'Southwark Summers' showed New Year's Day Parade spectators that summers in Southwark are the most vibrant and entertaining in the whole of London and won a second first prize, along with £ 6,000 for charity, for the Borough in 2003. In 2004 it was the turn of Hammersmith and Fulham to catch the eye with hugely colourful, thrilling and entertaining 'Albert and Friends Instant Circus'. Parade hosts, The City of Westminster finally achieved first place in 2005. No one will forget the spirit of wartime London evocatively brought to life with the recreation of a buzzing wartime dance hall replete with Jitterbuggers and a Vera Lynn sing along medley to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII. Merton who had long featured on the list of higher placings in the competition finally broke through as winners for the first time in 2006 with their creative float based on Merton Abbey Mills, a vibrant cultural, entertainment centre and weekend market in the borough.
Cllr Robert Davis' efforts to ensure that Westminster are always dazzlingly represented in the Parade paid off again in 2007 when the 'Magic of Covent Garden' entry won first prize for the City and £ 7,000 for The Lord Mayor's charity. Westminster had been run very close in 2007 by Ealing and their representative group 'South Connections', one of the finest Caribbean Carnival bands in the United Kingdom. It was no surprise then that on New Year's Day 2008 Ealing, once again represented by South Connections, this time performing 'De Journey Now Start', won first prize.
To show just how excellent the competition has become, South Connections performed just as brilliantly again for Ealing in 2009 as they had in 2008. But so good were the other entries this time round that Ealing managed just a creditable 6th place. Merton triumphed with 'Merton's Winter Wonderland', a glittering display of fairies, elves, trees, Snow Queens and seasonal delights, and in so doing won an enhanced first prize of £ 7,500 for the Mayor's chosen charity.
So having checked the winners from 1997 to 2009 let's see who came out on top in 2010.





 

'The Let's Help London Challenge' League Table.

When the London Parade initiated the competition in 1997 we thought it would be fun to have a league table to reflect how Boroughs would fare over the years of competition and also to instil a little bit extra competitive edge into 'The Let's Help London Challenge'.  Points have been awarded on the basis of positions gained since the first 'Let's Help London Challenge' in 1997.  As you can see the majority of London's Boroughs now feature as point winners in the league table which means that the substantial majority of London Boroughs have won prizes of one kind or another over the years of the competition. All London Boroughs have taken part in at least one year of the competition since its inauguration.  
In 2011 points were awarded as follows:
1st place 8 points , 2nd place 7, 3rd place 6, 4th place 5, 5th place 4, 6th place 3. 7th, 8th and 9th places each scored 2 points and 10th, 11th and 12th places scored 1. The two special winners of 'Organiser's Awards' each scored 1 point.
Points were awarded in proportion to the value of the charity cash prizes won.
For the 2012 competition the total prize fund remains the same and so points will be awarded in the same fashion.
 
 LEAGUE POSITION
BOROUGH
POINTS WON IN 2011
OVERALL NUMBER OF POINTS 1997 - 2011
1st
Westminster
8
59
2nd
Merton
0
42
3rd
Sutton
1
39
4th
Redbridge
5
34
5th
Southwark
0
32
6th
Ealing
6
28
7th
Brent
 7
21
8th
Lambeth
1
18
9th
Hammersmith & Fulham
 2
17
10th
Newham
0
16
10th
Havering
2
16
10th
Barking & Dagenham
 3
16
11th
Tower Hamlets
0 
15
11th
Enfield
5
15
12th
Hounslow
0
9
13th
Greenwich
0
6
13th
Lewisham
0
6
13th
Harrow
1
6
 14th
Richmond
2
5
15th
Bexley
0 
4
 15th
Hillingdon
0
4
16th
Barnet
0
3
16th
Islington
1
3
17th
Bromley
0
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