TWENTY organisations from across East Anglia have been shortlisted in the regional round of this year's Chartered Institute of Public Relations PRide Awards - with agencies from Suffolk and Essex among those leading the way.

TWENTY organisations from across East Anglia have been shortlisted in the regional round of this year's Chartered Institute of Public Relations PRide Awards - with agencies from Suffolk and Essex among those leading the way.

Project PR, based near Ipswich, is nominated for five awards, including Consumer Relations (for work with Ford Retail), Integrated (for work undertaken jointly with Suffolk household cleaning products manufacturer Challs), Best Newspaper or Magazine (for Havebury Housing Partnership's tenants' newsletter) and Best Website (for Team Ipswich) as well as the Outstanding Small Consultancy award.

“We're thrilled to have got to this stage and staggered that we have managed to be selected as a finalist for all five entries we made,” said Penny Arbuthnot, a director at Project PR.

“Although we're a small agency with a team of four, our clients range from national corporates to local businesses, and we pride ourselves on delivering results which exceed their expectations.”

Close behind, with four nominations, is Colchester-based Mosaic Publicity which is among the finalists in the Business and Trade, Low Budget and Outstanding Public Relations Consultancy categories, with Rechenda Smith, a PR account manager at the firm, also nominated for the Outstanding Young Communicator Award.

The Business and Trade nomination was for the agency's work on the Colchester Business Improvement District (BID) which its work on Round Table's UK Clean-Up campaign has been shortliested in the Low Budget category.

Mosaic, which is run by former BBC radio and TV reporters Karen Ainley and Kevin Bentley and has a team of 10 people in all, offers full service PR and marketing communications solutions in addition to its own separate media training division.

“Reaching the short list is proof to our colleagues and clients that our work has been judged to be amongst the best in the UK - and is a great accolade to our team,” said Karen Ainley, director. “We are extremely proud of this achievement.”

Norfolk dominated the rest of the agency nominations, with three each for The Works and Shorthose Russell, both based in Norwich, two each for Band and Brown and Fox Murphy, also both from Norwich, and for Jungle Public Relations, from Hardley, near Loddon, Norfolk, and one each for Black Pig Design of Royston, Herts, and NewsCrews Ltd from Syleham, Suffolk.

Among in-house PR teams, the East of England Development Agency leads the way with eight nominations, followed by Norfolk County Council with five, Suffolk County Council with four, and the University of Essex Students' Union with three.

Circle Anglia, the Norfolk & Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust and South Cambridgeshire District Council are each among the finalists in two categories with Anglian Water, Essex County Council, Harlow District Council and Merial Animal Health nominated for one award each.

The PRide Awards are designed to showcase the best PR work being carried out across the UK and this year attracted a total of 1,456 across the 11 regions. The winners in the East of England will be announced at a ceremony to be held at Endeavour House, Ipswich, on December 5.

Paul Dickson, vice chairman of the CIPR East Anglia, said: “To reach the PRide Awards short list is a remarkable achievement as year on year the quantity and quality of entries increases and competition gets stronger.

“The finalists are testament to the good PR work going on outside of London and across sectors. They should feel proud of their and their chosen profession's invaluable contribution to business and society.”

For a full list of the regional finalists, visit www.cipr.co.uk/prideawards/