BADCo Wins NODA Award for Community Spirit!

We’ve got another award to add to the BADCo trophy cabinet!

We were incredibly proud to be named the winner of the NODA South West District Achievement Award for Community Spirit, recognising something that has always been at the very heart of BADCo – bringing people together through theatre.

A small group of BADCo representatives made the trip down to Exeter for the NODA Awards evening, held at the Exeter Chiefs Rugby Ground. Thanks to bank holiday traffic, the journey there took an impressive four hours – including a glamorous stop at Taunton Services in their awards-night finery!

Thankfully, it was worth the journey.

A very different kind of theatre company

The evening brought together amateur theatre groups from across the South West, giving us the chance to meet some fantastic companies and hear about the incredible productions being created throughout the region.

We shared our table with members of Bath Musical Society and soon discovered that some amateur productions operate on a slightly different scale to ours – with budgets of around £100,000 per production!

Naturally, we proudly countered with our £350 costume budget and the fact that there’s very little our Auntie Viv can’t achieve with a pair of curtains.

We also introduced them to the wonders of our now rather infamous IKEA bag costume. Needless to say, BADCo made an impression!

And the award goes to… BADCo!

Anna and Sue took to the stage to collect our Community Spirit Award, while Raych stayed behind to capture the moment and the presentation telling everyone in the room a little more about BADCo and what makes our group so special.

While we love putting on a good panto, BADCo has never just been about what happens on stage.

It’s about giving people somewhere to belong. It’s generations of families performing, building sets, sewing

costumes, working backstage and volunteering together. It’s creating affordable local theatre that our community can enjoy. And it’s using every show as an opportunity to give something back.

Over the years, our productions have allowed us to raise thousands of pounds for charities and organisations doing brilliant work in our community. But just as importantly, BADCo has created friendships, memories and a place where people of all ages can get involved and be part of something.

So, of all the awards we could have received, Community Spirit feels particularly special.

Celebrating amateur theatre

The rest of the evening was a brilliant celebration of amateur theatre across the South West, with dinner, entertainment, awards and even a little time on the dance floor.

We were also delighted to hear our fellow Gloucestershire group CODS announced as runners-up for their production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They weren’t able to be there on the night, so naturally the BADCo table made sure they still received a suitably enthusiastic Gloucestershire cheer!

Eventually it was time for the journey home – thankfully a considerably quicker one hour and 40 minutes – accompanied by the Top 100 Greatest Musical Songs playlist and what we’re sure was an absolutely flawless car-full performance.

This one belongs to all of us ❤️

This award might have been collected by a few members of BADCo, but it belongs to everyone who makes our little group what it is.

To every person who has stepped onto our stage, painted a piece of scenery, made a costume, worked backstage, sold a raffle ticket, helped front of house, joined a rehearsal, supported one of our charities or simply bought a ticket and cheered us on – thank you.

We might not have £100,000 production budgets.

But we do have an extraordinary group of people, an Auntie Viv with a pair of curtains, and a whole lot of community spirit.

And now we’ve got the NODA award to prove it. ❤️🏆