PRESS RELEASE ‘ARTICLE’ – SPIRITUAL CONNEXTIONS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AWARDS
20TH OCTOBER 2007, SOUTHAMPTON GUILDHALL

Award ceremonies are almost as common on our TV screens as repeats - whole programmes dedicated to watching ‘A Listers’ schmoozing and crying as they are disappointed or feted for their efforts to promote their genres and be the best that they can be. These awards: The Brits, the BAFTAs, the Oscars; are household names in their own right and are coveted highly – everyone wants to be recognised for their work and everyone wants the public to respect what they do.

However, there is a glaring gap in the many awards that are presented yearly. No-one has yet to give credit and respect to those people who work tirelessly in the spiritual, paranormal and holistic fields, despite the fact that there is a growing interest amongst the public, who are reassured, helped, educated and uplifted by the work that is done in this field every day.

Enter Spiritual ConneXtions – a web-based directory, internet radio station and online dating service, whose primary aim is to act as a meeting place and educational tool for those people interested in the spiritual. Spiritual ConneXtions prides itself in bringing people together all over the world who are fascinated with life hereafter and all that implies. They also provide a contact point for people to find tarot readers, mediums, healers and holistic practitioners.

Since their launch in March 2005, Spiritual ConneXtions have had an astonishing 17.6 million visitors to their site and have won a ‘Best Service’ award from Vision magazine. The site is free to the public and has helped enormously to bring people together to learn and grow. With this aim in mind, they felt that acknowledgement for mediums, healers, psychics and holistic practitioners, was sorely lacking. They decided to launch a new series of awards for people in these fields, and so, the Spiritual ConneXtions Acknowledgement Awards were born.

I arrived on the morning of Saturday 20th September at Southampton Guildhall were I meet up with Alice O’Toole (an up and coming journalist) to interview and greet some of the many people nominated for an award, as well as peruse the varied collections of stalls: everything from crystals to healing, as well as psychic readings and information on paranormal groups. The hall was buzzing with excitement and interest, generated perhaps by the fascinating stands, as well as the workshops on offer with household names in the field: Richard Felix from Most Haunted; Mia Dolan from Haunted Homes and Sally Morgan from the hugely successful ITV series: Sally Morgan – Star Psychic.

I had only just arrived when I was greeted by the very excited and bubbly Jacky Newcomb, known to those in the field as ‘The Angel Lady’. Jacky had been nominated in two categories: Best UK Female Personality and Best UK Author / Book. I asked Jacky how she felt about the nominations and was not surprised to find her enthusiasm for the awards as a whole was as great as her enthusiasm for her own nominations.
“I am absolutely thrilled to be nominated, I am so excited! It is a testament of the power of Angels to touch the lives of individuals and I couldn’t be happier!”.

I wondered if Jacky had asked the angels for a little help. “I couldn’t possibly comment”, said Jacky, mischievously, “but I work a lot with the Archangel Gabriel, and I’m sure he’ll put in a good word for me!”.
After speaking to Jacky I wandered around the hall, taking in the atmosphere and pausing to talk to some of the stall holders, despite all the attractions at the Holistic Fayre, the Spiritual ConneXtions Acknowledgement Awards were only a few hours away, so reluctantly I left for the New Place DeVere Hotel, just outside Southampton. The New Place is a stunning stately home, and a fitting backdrop and host location for the pre-award dinner.

If you have ever wanted to dine amongst a plethora of personalities, the pre-award dinner was the place to be. Bedecked in dinner jackets and gowns, the stars certainly twinkled (Jacky Newcomb, Joe Power, Delphi Ellis, Sally Morgan, Richard Felix, Ray Brown, Mia Dolan to name just a few) during our lovely five course dinner.

After our dinner, we left to return to the Guildhall. Now set for the evening’s celebrations, with VIP tables at the front for the nominees and rows of chairs waiting to be taken up by guests. There was only enough time to get a drink before our hosts (Brian Smith and Claire Reed from the BBC) started the ball rolling and explained the purpose of the awards and introduced us to our cabaret, the award winning contemporary dancers: ‘Serenity’. A moving and graceful performance followed, as the excitement continued to rise for the main event itself.

As I was the lucky one to interview all the award winners, I ensconced myself in a private room ready to see who had won your votes. My first guest was the charming and talented Sally Morgan, whose show Sally Morgan – Star Psychic had captured your attention and your votes to win her the title of ‘Best UK Television Show’. Sally was both surprised and delighted with her award.

“I think these awards are so important, especially as they show the impact that the spiritual is having on terrestrial television. I hope that ‘Star Psychic’ winning this award is just the start of terrestrial stations taking up the mantle and continuing to produce programmes in this genre’.

Although he was not able to attend on the night, Tony Stockwell took the award for Best UK Male Personality. Knowing Tony, I suspect he would be both grateful and humbled, as he is not a man to get carried away with titles, but will delight in the acknowledgement of what mediums do.

My next visitor was the lovely Mia Dolan, who had taken the title of Best UK Female Personality. Mia was also delighted, and commented on the hard work that had been put in to make the programme a success, and intimated that there may be more programmes to come.

Next was my friend Jacky Newcomb, who had won the category of Best UK author. Her Sunday Times Best Selling title: An Angel by My Side had already been recognised by the mainstream media, so it came as no surprise that she had also been voted winner of this category by Spiritual ConneXtions visitors. Jacky, however, was as surprised as she could be! She was even more surprised to be collecting another award later for Best UK Printed Media for Chat ‘It’s Fate!’. As a columnist for the magazine, her genuine happiness for the title was as great as that for the award she’d won herself.

Although I’d already met some of the major names in the business, it was as much an honour to meet those groups and organisations that toil away from the silver screen to help and heal, as it was to meet the celebrities. Without exception, all of these groups were delighted that their work had been recognised, and in some cases, they were flabbergasted.

Val Minns from Shirley Spiritualist Church just could not believe ‘her little church’ had been voted “Best Spiritual Church”. She said that she could only think it was because they were always welcoming and dedicated. I asked Val if her church was only open to Spiritualists.

“No!” she assured me. “Everyone is welcome to come here and experience proof of life after death. We’re happy to welcome newcomers and you do not need to be a Spiritualist to join us at a service.”
I also met up with Simon Bacon from one of the oldest spiritual organisations in the UK – The College of Psychic Studies. The College has been investigating, teaching and helping people to learn more about spiritual and paranormal fields for centuries, and it was really no surprise they took the title, despite the high level of competition.

It seemed that each person that came to see me couldn’t believe the public had voted for them, as competition was stiff in a genre that has long been maligned or ignored. Now people, who were being recognised with awards for their selfless efforts, were also helping to raise the profile of the extraordinary, as experienced by ordinary people.

Two acknowledgements stood out over the rest, and that was for the ‘Life Time’ achievement award. Owner of Spiritual ConneXtions, Richard Blair, explained to the celebrity and VIP guests why both Derek Robinson president of the Wimbledon Spiritualist Church and Eric Hatton of the Spiritualist Nation Union were both being honoured with this high accolade. Needless to say, it was their lifetime dedication to Spiritualism and their incredibly hard work promoting the work of spiritualists that had come to the attention of Spiritual ConneXtions and made them both winners of this (sure to be coveted) award.
Once the award ceremony finished, the after-show party started and everyone excited and upbeat; having photos taken, chatting about how wonderful the event was and exchanging compliments on how everyone looked.

Here’s looking forward to the next Spiritual ConneXtions Acknowledgement Awards and wishing them every success for many years to come.

Diana Jarvis

For more information about the Spiritual ConneXtions Award please visit http://www.spiritualconnextions.com –A link to photographs of the event can also be found there.