Woking-based Phoenix Cultural Centre has been named winner of this year’s Education and Training Awards by Corporate Vision magazine.

The community founded non-profit was awarded “Leading Advocate of Community Led Regeneration” and “Best Culture and Arts Workshop and Exhibition Space” for South East England.

Speaking on behalf of the team, Phoenix Cultural Centre and Fiery Bird CEO and founder Elaine McGinty said: “We were thrilled we have been awarded these categories based on the judges’ research and seeing our work in action.

“We hope this spotlights the value of work that small community founded and led organisations contribute.”

The award is bittersweet for Elaine as the centre is scheduled to close in the new year.

“Sadly, the work is effective and, outside of Woking, seen as impactful and outstanding but it is hard to get traction in our home town,” Elaine added. “So far no further option has arisen.

“Bookings are going great and we are trying to accommodate as much as our small team can do. We recently opened extra evenings to support groups from the Maybury Centre while it was closed.”

To keep their own doors open Elaine has used crowdfunding, raising some £6,500.

“The crowdfunding is building slowly after the initial impact but people are donating outside of that,” Elaine said. “We had amazing news from Woking Community Focus who donate their surplus to local organisations and gave us £4,000. It was incredibly generous.

“We hope to keep raising money and for events to go well. I am working to keep it going as long as I can to make sure we honour everything and can store our equipment while we consider the next steps.

“Everything is a community asset, so it would be a shame for the town to lose the only professional training live music venue set-up we have in Woking.”