Isle of Man Newspapers’ Awards for Excellence has been launched, with categories now open for nomination entries.

The annual community event, which celebrates the best of Manx business, charity and innovation, will be held at the Villa Marina on March 19.

The event, now in its 15th year, is usually held in November and launched during July, this year it was moved because of the pandemic.

In light of this, the 2021 award categories were updated to emphasise how businesses have supported the community throughout the pandemic, in keeping with this year’s awards theme of ’Isle of Success’, which looks at the Isle of Man going forward and its plans for the future.

New categories include: ’The Award for Doing the Impossible during the Pandemic’, ’Business Supporting our Community’, ’Celebrating our Local Food Producers’, and ’Our Local Heroes’.

Companies which are sponsoring a category for the first time include Wilton and the Mannin Hotel, which hosted the launch event in Douglas.

At the event sponsors were randomly assigned award categories by drawing their names out of a golden envelope.

Isle of Man Newspapers’ deputy chairman, Trudi Williamson MBE, gave an opening speech, saying: ’We thought this year it wasn’t really about the spirit of competition.

’When we’ve all loved each other over the last few months, and everybody has been so supportive, we thought that to try and be the best in everything, or to put your head above the parapet so to speak - that probably wasn’t where everybody wants to be.

’So we decided to re-write the award categories so that they are softer, to reflect this spirit of businesses supporting the community, as we saw in the way our island came together during the pandemic.’

This year’s chosen charity is Isle Listen, which provides ’support and training in schools, the workplace and community, helping people to recognise that mental health is just as important as physical health’.

Mrs Williamson welcomed the charity’s chief executive Andrea Chambers to the launch event, and noted that ’We’re very aware that this year mental health has become more important than ever, so we’re absolutely delighted that we can support Isle Listen’.

A full list of sponsors and categories will appear in Thursday’s Manx Independent.