Hemingby village has been setting the pace as an involved community for over 20 years. So much so that the village was declared Building Community Life Calor Village of the Year for Central England in 2007.

Hemingby has been an exemplar of community participation - staging events from barn dances to safari suppers - as well as securing funding from the national lottery to redevelop it’s play area. The village isn’t stopping there though, entering the electronic age they’ve launched a website www.hemingby.net, containing news and events, as well as an electronic version of the village magazine, which was first published in 2003.

Chairman of Hemingby Parish Council, Doug Rodwell, believes it’s the involvement of the entire village that has helped them to create such a successful community: “Hemingby has always been a great place to live, but with the help of residents, we’ve been able to secure some real improvements to our public spaces and create a really involved social scene.” 

Doug continues: “All of the content on the website is generated by residents. We’re all really proud of our village and want to shout about it. The website’s a great way of keeping residents and visitors up to date with what’s happening in Hemingby.”

The younger generation is also getting involved with local democracy. Hollie Watts has been a youth councillor with Hemingby Parish Council since she was 13 and thinks that more young people should get involved in local democracy: “I’ve been on the Parish Council since 2006, it’s great to get young peoples views across. Without representation young people are often overlooked on the decisions that affect them I think more people should be involved.”

Take Part Lincolnshire, a joint initiative by the University of Lincoln and Lincolnshire Assembly aims to get more people involved in local democracy. As part of Local Democracy Week Take Part Lincolnshire has been encouraging Lincolnshire citizens to tell their stories about the different ways they are involving people in local decision making and to learn from different experiences across Lincolnshire.  Case studies and news articles will be published in a new website www.takepartlincolnshire.org.

Take Part Lincolnshire is part of the Take Part National Network and the Take Part Pathfinder National Programme.