This is what community newspapers can look forward to when the AVBOB Awards for Outstanding Journalism are presented in Cape Town later this year.

The Forum for Community Journalists (FCJ) held its annual board meeting at the AVBOB head office in Durbanville and made decisions that predict an exciting year for newspapers.

With AVBOB as a sponsor on board, the FCJ can build on last year’s successful award ceremony at Birchwood Hotel in Boksburg.

For the first time in years, the award ceremony returns to Cape Town and the board visited several locations on Thursday to present an unforgettable but affordable award ceremony and national seminar.

It was also decided to hold the award ceremony earlier, with the capable Andre Gouws once again heading the editorial judges, and award-winning photographer Hennie Homann judging the photography section.

Journalists will once again compete in categories like human interest, investigations, columns, editorial commentary, journalist of the year, sports, newspaper of the year, best front page, hard news, emerging journalist of the year and photographer of the year.

For young photographers, there is good news. It was decided to honour photographers with less than three years of journalistic experience.

There is still hard work to be done in the next few months, such as finding a suitable venue, and the board will meet again in two weeks to finalise the judging panel.

More good news is that the regional seminars will be offered again with the popular “No Guts, No Story, No Glory Seminar”, which will be held on August 17 and 18 in the Middelburg area.

This seminar again promises to motivate and inspire.

Virtual training will continue to be offered by the FCJ during the year.

The board chairman, Marietta Lombard, re-emphasised the important role that the FCJ plays on the press council and painted a picture with statistics that show complaints submitted to the PC are addressed timeously.

Andre Gouws was also appointed as the FCJ’s representative on the Press Council and member of the Panel of Adjudicators after Helene Viljoen left the community press industry.

Journalists at community newspapers can approach their representative on the board for further enquiries: Marietta Lombard (Gauteng and executive chairman),

Ben Burger (Western Cape and deputy executive chairman), Tobie van den Bergh (Limpopo and Mpumalanga), Hugo Redelinghuys (Southern Cape Hessequa and Garden Route), Lientjie Mentz (Free State and Northern Cape), Dustin Wetdewich (North West) and Roelin D’Amico (KwaZulu-Natal).