A WORM-CHARMING contest has won the top prize of £10,000 in a competition organised jointly by the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group and the Church Times.

The winners of the competition, for innovative ideas that involved local communities and could be copied by others, went to the Church of St Elizabeth of Hungary, in Aspull, near Wigan. Runners-up prizes of £2000 apiece went to: St Thomas’s, Dodbrooke; St Andrew’s, Chardstock; St Paul’s, Walton-in Gordano; St Chad’s, Rochdale; and St George’s, Barbourne.

In all, 424 churches entered the competition. Shortlisting was done by the Church Times editor and others. The judges were Michael Angell, EIG church operations director; the Ven. Christine Wilson, Archdeacon of Chesterfield and an EIG director; Margaret Duggan, a long-term Church Times contributor; and the Revd Maggie Durran, author of The UK Church Fundraising Handbook, and a regular Church Times columnist.

It is hoped that more of the ideas submitting might be made available online in the near future.

The lighter side of fund-raising - A competition to find the best fundraising ideas, run jointly with Ecclesiastical Insurance, has turned up many great ideas. As we profile the best, Maggie Durran reviews the entries