North Mymms Parish Council has entered Brookmans Park for the Hertfordshire Village of the Year 2004 competition under the information technology section. The following details about the entry were submitted by North Mymms Parish Councillor, Bob Horrocks.

Brookmans Park Village Green Camera courtesy of Fujifilm Front page picture courtesy of Falcon Media

This annual competition is organised by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) - Hertfordshire Society and sponsored by Calor Gas. Entries have to be submitted by 6 May with the Awards Evening held at County Hall on 1 July.

Brookmans Park has previously won several times under the old rules for entry and the 'Village of the year' cross became a regular landmark on Bradmore Green. However the rules were changed a couple of years ago and there are now six categories for assessment namely environment, business, younger people, older people, community life, and IT (information technology).

The IT category does not carry a prize at county level, but the county winner will be nominated for a national competition. Last year the county IT winner was www.braughing.org.uk. This year North Mymms Parish Council has entered Brookmans Park under the IT section now that all six questions can be satisfactorily answered. The questions were:

1. Do you have a village website?
   Yes - www.brookmans.com which has won national awards in the 'New Statesman' competition.
2. Does your village have a public Internet terminal?
   Yes - at the Public Library.
3. Do you have any IT/Internet training within the community?
   Yes - Chancellor's School obtained Specialist School Status in 2003 in Maths and Computing. The school now runs free evening training for local societies, clubs and businesses plus training for other local schools on these subjects.
4. Does the Parish Council have an email address?
   Yes -
5. Do any of the local businesses offer a public fax service?
   Yes - Bryan's Hardware
6. Do local businesses lend their technology for the benefit of the village (scanner, digital camera, faxing, printing)?
   Yes, indirectly. Local businesses and residents funded the £50,000 deposit needed by Chancellor's School in order to qualify for the Specialist School Status. This released government funding for the school of £150,000 capital grant plus £120,000 pa for the next four years. Several shops offer photocopying services, and www.brookmans.com has been known to lend a digital camera, which is loaned to the site by Fujifilm, to record local events.

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2 March 2004