Jayonline Webdev Blog

Looking back at 2006, it was a very busy year, some excellent projects that I was fortunate to be asked to contribute to.

Spanning two cities, Brighton and London I quickly developed a good idea about what each job required. News International, Ebay and Emap my clients, the work for which I was nominated for, for this award.

However, I was none the wiser until one morning in January I was notified that I was a finalist in the Xchangeteam Freelancer of the Year Awards. I was quietly excited, but was too busy to think any more of it.

It was only until I was travelling up on the train from Brighton to the London event, with my girlfriend, Fiona, that I started to wonder how far I’d go. I was up against 150 other freelancers, obviously some other very established freelancers based in London.

This was a National contest with expert judges looking at our skills in relation to adding value to business as well as contributing to the freelance movement.

I must say meeting some friendly faces helped to calm my nerves, but no sooner had we arrived than the award ceremony started.

Each category winner receiving their award, to a rapturous applause. Then next was the New Media /Digital category, for which I was nominated. The description of the winner sounded familiar, and then my name was announced.

Once I started walking towards the stage I soon forgot about everything as the nerves and excitement overcame me. The noise of the audience blurred into the background.

The evening was a great opportunity to meet other freelancers who I’d not get the chance to meet, from other backgrounds, such as marketing, events and editorial.

Everyone was very friendly and added to the atmosphere of the event. I must note that I was the only male to win an award and possibly the only person based outside of London to win.

Now in their third year, Xchangeteam’s Freelancer of the Year Awards have been designed to showcase freelance talent and reward those consultants who have demonstrated that they have added real value to a client’s business and to UK plc overall.

Emma Brierley is CEO and founder of Xchangeteam and the Freelancer of the Year Awards. Her aim was to create an award that would promote the value that freelancers bring to their clients’ businesses and the marketing and creative industry as well as inspire the growing freelance workforce. She said: “Many potential clients have yet to fully understand the quality of freelance talent available and the benefits that freelancers can bring to their business. The Freelancer of the Year Awards serves to give freelancers a well deserved pat on the back, to acknowledge their work and celebrate their unsung achievements.”

What this means for me?

It has taken all week for this to sink in, what I have already planned for this year such as writing articles, networking and attending conferences is still in place.

I’ve recently found myself passing skills about freelance life to other colleagues starting out, and I plan to post tips onto my blog as and when.

I guess I have always been passionate about the web, now hopefully the standards can be set by these awards. Not just with technology, but the way we work, communicate and acheive results.

A great start to the year, I would like to thank Xchangeteam for this fantastic opportunity, and I look forward to enjoying the award.

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More about Jim Callender Freelance Web Developer

I offer the following services, to learn more visit the following pages or contact me:

• Web development and hand-coding of CSS based web sites
• Accessibility Consultancy
• Search Engine Optimisation and web site promotion
• Email Marketing

This entry was posted on Friday, February 2nd, 2007 at and is filed under about us, work, freelance, fun, networking, awards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.