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The winners of the 2008 National Lottery Awards were revealed at a star-studded live television show, after beating hundreds of organisations from across the UK to be named as the nation’s favourite Lottery-funded projects. 

The seven winners, who received a trophy as well as a £2,000* cash prize to be spent on their project, are:

- Oska Bright Film Festival - Best Arts Project
- AirSpace, Imperial War Museum Duxford - Best Education Project
- Nell Bank Outdoor Education Centre - Best Environment Project 
- Train the Trainer - iVillage.co.uk Award for Best Health Project
- Armed Forces Memorial - Best Heritage Project
- Get Active in the Forest - Best Sports Project
- Redditch Nightstop - Woman magazine Award for Best Charity/Voluntary
Project.

Staff and supporters from all 21 organisations that made it through to the final, mingled with celebrity guests at the Awards ceremony, including boxing star Ricky ‘The Hitman’ Hatton, TV and radio presenter Gethin Jones, Amanda Mealing (Connie in Holby City), and pop-rock band McFly.

A record number of public votes were cast in the fifth annual National Lottery Awards.  Caroline Wood of the National Lottery Awards says: “This year’s National Lottery Awards received an overwhelming response from the public who really got behind all the projects.

“Each and every winner is a wonderful example of how Lottery funding has been used to make a real difference to the community and we are delighted to be able to recognise everyone’s hard work and dedication.  They should all feel very proud of their achievements.”

The National Lottery Awards

Now in their fifth successful year, The National Lottery Awards are an annual search to find the UK’s favourite Lottery-funded projects. The Awards recognise the difference that Lottery-funded projects - both large and small - make to local communities, and celebrate the achievements of the people behind them. 

Since The National Lottery began in 1994, players have raised more than £21 billion – that’s £25 million a week - for Good Causes, with over 300,000 grants given out across arts, sport, heritage, charities, health, education and the environment.

*Please note the £2,000 cash prize is not a Lottery grant. Grants are allocated at the discretion of the individual distributors once a project has applied for funding. A project cannot enter The National Lottery Awards, unless it has already received Lottery funding.

To find out more about applying for Lottery funding, visit www.lotteryfunding.org.uk

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For further information, including images, quotes and/ or interview requests please contact:
Emma Koubayssi on 020 7299 8783/ emma.koubayssi@geronimocommunications.com
Corin Brett on 0207 211 1684 / corin.brett@lotterygoodcauses.org.uk

Notes to Editors:
· The National Lottery Awards 2008 were launched in February, and projects entered themselves or were nominated by a member of the public. An independent panel of judges selected a shortlist of ten projects per category from the 725 entries received. The first round of public voting took place between 16 June and 4 July. The three projects with the most votes in each category qualified for the final round of public voting between 21 July and 8 August. The project with the most votes in each category was declared the winner, the other two projects declared category runners-up
· There are seven categories in the Awards, each reflecting an area of Lottery funding: Sport, Heritage, Arts, Environment, Education, Health and Charity/Voluntary
· The Award for Best Charity/Voluntary Project is this year sponsored by Woman magazine. Woman is the number one variety-packed women's weekly
· The Award for Best Health Project is this year sponsored by iVillage.co.uk. iVillage.co.uk is the UK's largest website for women
· Voting was independently verified by Electoral Reform Services
· For more information on National Lottery Good Causes or the Awards visit www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/awards