What is Keighley Soup? It is a number of things, it is a way of the community coming together to support innovative ideas from local people to, in someway improve the area or the lives of those who live in Keighley and surrounding areas. How does it work? Applications are invited from individuals and organisations who have innovative project or business ideas which are beneficial to the local comm
unity. The winner on the night receives all the money raised from entry fees and other donations to help drive forward their initiative. We also hope that by bringing creative people together, and through the networking opportunity this gives, people can trade/offer skills and experience to further their ideas. Applicants may also go away with offers of advice and support. On the night, audience members pay an entry fee at the door (£5) for which they get a vote and food. Four presentations are given on projects ranging from social enterprises, employment creation, local regeneration, art/culture, education, and more. Each presentation is allowed 4 minutes. Audience members can ask up to 4 questions per presentation. After the presentations the food is served and audience members are encouraged to discuss/debate the presentations during this networking/relationship building opportunity and prior to voting. Audience members then vote for the project that they feel will benefit the local community the most. This is carried out by giving each of the audience members a token which they drop into one of four boxes and the tokens are counted at the end. Whichever project gets the most votes gets the door money and any other donations received. Winners are encouraged to appear at future soups to share their successes. Unsuccessful applicants are encouraged to try again. We aim to encourage small business owners, philanthropic people and entrepreneurs to be in the audience as part of this creative community, with the hope that this will add its own flavour to the networking element of the night. Community groups in particular may wish to take advantage of the networking opportunity. Initial Judging of Applicants prior to the event
Applicants who wish to be considered as one of the four presenters on Soup night will be asked to submit their initial proposals. These proposals will be marked by a panel of judges. ANYONE from the local community can be a judge of initial applications. During the PR roll out, along with the invitation for proposals for Soup night, all local people will be invited to apply to be a judge. Also Soup organisers will ask people already known for their interest in the local community if they would like to take part. Applicants will be invited to submit initial proposals and these would be made available to each of the judges. The judges would mark them from their least preferred being given 1 point and their next least being given 2 points and so on. All marks are tallied at the end to give four clear choices for Soup night presentations.
