Today we turn the spotlight on the three nominees in the Arts Award at the Examiner Community Awards. The winner will be announced at the awards next Thursday at the John Smith’s Stadium. Coming next ... the brilliant people shortlisted in the Services To Charity category.

Huddersfield Literature Festival

It’s been going for 11 years and has become a major event for Huddersfield, putting it well and truly on the arts map.

Huddersfield Literature Festival (HLF) has gone from strength to strength, bringing big name authors to Huddersfield, supporting local talent and attracting people here from across the north.

This not-for-profit independent arts organisation promotes Huddersfield as a cultural centre to rival others, not only in West Yorkshire but UK-wide.

Video Loading

It features dozens of events, bringing revenue into the town centre and encouraging visitors to spend in its shops, bars and restaurants.

It also attracts people who would not normally go to arts events and makes each event affordable, free or you simply pay what you like on the night.

Big names featured recently include highly respected journalist Kate Adie, top thriller writer Ian Rankin, explorer Levison Wood, a comic convention called Majikkon which attracted 1,000 mainly young people, Alan Johnson MP, broadcaster Jenni Murray who presents Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and actor Ben Miller.

Huddersfield Literature Festival host a night with comedian Ben Miller, at Huddersfield University.

HLF promotes local performers and organisations from writers and children’s storytellers to publishers and writers groups, providing a chance for them to showcase their work. The community can also attend creative writing workshops and take part in open mic nights and poetry slams.

HLF celebrates diversity in its programming, including annual events for black, asian, minority ethnic backgrounds and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender audiences and for people of all ages. It only works with venues that are accessible to the disabled and features some events with live subtitling for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

HLF, which costs £25,000 to stage, is part funded by the University of Huddersfield, is sponsored by 12 businesses and runs many events on campus and provides invaluable work experience for students.

The festival has held events and provided author talks for local schools.

Jess Hardy from Salendine Nook School said: “HLF has been phenomenal in raising and promoting literacy standards and instilling a love of reading for our students by co-ordinating guest speakers into school.”

HLF raises funds/awareness for several charities, including Kirkwood Hospice, Reading Matters and Stagetext.

The festival’s volunteer committee has increased to around 60 local people, donating more than 1,000 hours of their time, and around 3,300 people attended festival events this year.

Festival Director Michelle Hodgson, of Almondbury, gives lectures to students studying journalism, marketing and creative writing, and school assemblies to inspire children to improve their literacy skills for their future career prospects.

As part of the Healthy High Street initiative, it ran a very successful HLF2017 Courage Is Poetry Project, working with more than 30 businesses in the town centre by displaying poetry in their business windows. This poetry competition attracted 250 entries including many from schoolchildren.

The Dance Zone

Dance can be such a powerful force for children, giving them such brilliant opportunities to shine and boost their self-esteem.

And this is certainly the case with the Big Dance Project organised by the Dance Zone at Huddersfield Community Trust.

Last year it put 75 children through a nationally recognised qualification for Arts Awards, run in conjunction with Trinity College London and the Arts Council, which focuses on unlocking the knowledge of different art forms through understanding, creativity and communication.

It leads to awards called Discover, Explore and then bronze, silver and gold categories.

The Big Dance Project was a collaborative dance performance consisting of more than 250 dancers from 12 schools across Kirklees focussing on the award called Discover. During the six-week project they learned about dance and choreography for the Elton John hit I’m Still Standing which they then all joined together to perform at the John Smith’s Stadium at half-time during the Huddersfield v Leeds game,

At the rugby league’s Magic Weekend in Newcastle where several of the Super League teams play one another, more than 600 dancers from around the UK worked with industry professionals to perform at one of the UK’s biggest stadiums, St James’ Park. This focused on the second award, Explore, and 16 youngsters from Kirklees took part in this after training for it at The Zone.

Examiner Community Awards. Arts Awards. Big Dance Project.

Thirdly, at the Wicked Musical Theatre Summer Camp 16 children attended a full week holiday camp focusing on the bronze award where they worked with industry professionals who have appeared in a number of West End shows.

The group also saw a live theatre production where they learned about production, lighting, sound, costume and props and more. They then had to review the professional performance, as well as taking part in an arts activity themselves, researching a specific artist or crafts person and sharing their skills with others.

Bernie Morley, dance and fitness manager at The Zone said: “The team has worked extremely hard and logged more than 200 guided learning hours with these youngsters to take them through their journey.”

They are now waiting for all the accreditations from Trinity College and will be looking at a celebratory event for the youngsters to share their new found knowledge of the arts and to hopefully encourage others to get involved in the arts.

Bernie added: “The project has shown the youngsters that there is so much more to the arts than they might have thought. Many came to the project thinking art was only about drawing but we have shown them that it embraces all kinds of different skills, including dance.”

The Cliffites

The Cliffites have been entertaining the people of Birchencliffe for more than 30 years.

Their annual panto has become a must-see due to their local cast and strong commitment to tradition.

The group have one aim – to put on a great show and they love to get the whole community involved.

Generations of families have stepped out on the Birchencliffe stage and for the past three years they have even had three generations of the same family performing together.

The Cliffites thrive on that family feel and it means the younger members of the society are learning their craft through the eyes of more experienced actors so the tradition of panto won’t be lost.

Their scripts are written by Stephanie Potts who started with the group back in 1988 as a munchkin in The Wizard Of Oz and has been hooked ever since.

Cast from the Cliffites' production of Peter Pan. The family-run panto group raises money for St Philip's Church at Birchencliffe and charities

She’s been with them through thick and thin, the ‘thin’ being when their venue was destroyed by fire in 2007. It was then that Stephanie decided to try her hand at writing so they could save some money and in 2010 The Cliffites made a triumphant return with Mother Goose.

Since then they’ve gone from strength to strength and are attracting sell-out audiences – around 1,000 people over the course of the week – and more volunteers than they know what to do with. This year they had a cast of more than 40 performing in Peter Pan, complete with hi-tech flying sequences.

The Cliffites are completely self-funded, which is incredible considering they donate around 50% of their proceeds to St Philips Church at Birchencliffe. This February’s panto Peter Pan raised £2,500 for the church.

But their charitable donations don’t stop there. For the last five years the ticket proceeds from each opening night performance have been donated to different charities. Last year they raised nearly £700 for Rethink Mental Illness and this year raised £600 for The Stroke Association.

The group believe that panto is for everyone and as such have arranged for the last three opening nights to be signed for the deaf community, something that has been funded by a grant through Kirklees Council.

This commitment to the local community makes The Cliffites a completely unique group.