Ticket are now on sale for this year’s Community Awards !
BATCA was thrilled to receive nominations for 32 deserving individuals and teams who do valuable work to serve the community in Balham and Tooting.
Read on for more detail about the awards and click the yellow button to book your tickets for the ceremony (or visit batcaheroes2025.eventbrite.com).
This year’s event is on Sunday 27 April, 5.30-8.00pm at St Boniface Church Hall, 185 Mitcham Road, SW17 9PG.
The awards evening
The awards will take place at a celebration evening, with live entertainment from quartet Fuzion Four and a curry dinner included, as well as the presentation of the awards by our VIP guests.
Sunday 27 April 2025, 5.30-8pm, St Boniface Church Hall, Mitcham Road, Tooting SW17.
All of those nominated will be celebrated alongside the presentation of our six main awards for teams and individuals in the three categories: arts and culture; promoting social inclusion and fighting poverty; and general.
We are grateful to sponsors Islamic Relief and Wandsworth Council Grant Fund for their generous support for the event, which has enabled us to keep the tickets to £10 for a second year.
We look forward to seeing you on 27 April!
Award categories
This year there will be three categories, as follows.
- Making a difference for young people
People or organisations that ensure younger members of our community have a good start in life and a chance to thrive. Includes: developing skills and giving opportunities; tutoring and supporting with education; bringing local history or culture alive; fostering young talent; running a club or activity.
- Health, sports and leisure
Activities that help people maintain or get back to health through community activity. For example: running or coaching a sports team; providing healthy meals and/or support with learning to cook; recreational activities that bring people together; supporting people to get to medical appointments; social prescribing activities that help people connect with others.
- Building our community
Any activity bringing together people across Tooting and Balham in ways that support BATCA’s mission to support a harmonious, thriving community. For example: simple sustained acts of kindness and service; strengthening our community through reaching out to/bringing together people from diverse walks of life; boosting others’ life chances by passing on skills; making connections across different walks of life.
Who can be nominated?
- People of all ages and backgrounds are eligible, with awards for teams and individuals
- Nominations will be assessed by a panel of independent judges
- We do not give awards to individuals and teams for the same activity in consecutive years however we recognise and celebrate all those who are nominated, so don’t hold back if your nominee is a previous recipient
- Any field of activity counts, including helping neighbours, or being a dedicated member of a community group or faith body
- Sustained effort that makes a real difference to others’ lives is key
- Although primarily for volunteers, heroes in the workplace can also be nominated if they go beyond the expectations for their roles
- Previous award recipients include those supporting refugees and the elderly, community gardeners, shopkeepers looking after their neighbours, community artists, advocates for women’s rights, heroic fundraisers for good causes…so nominate your own hero today!
Please note these examples are not exhaustive – just a few illustrations. The grouping of nominations and final award categories are at the discretion of the judging panel and may be subject to change.
Please note that nominations are judged on their quality, not the number received. We ask that groups do not work together to send in a large number of nominations for the same individual/team, but rather combine to send one high quality nomination for the judges to review. Where more than one nomination is received for an individual or team, the nomination that provides the most useful information in support will be sent forward to the judges, who will not see the other submissions. The best way to be noticed by the judges is to send a well-written and full description of why the nominee is deserving (100-200 words). Very short nominations do not tend to be successful because the judges lack information to make a choice.
Balham and Tooting Community Association 