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Funny Women Founder is Honoured as Women's Champion

Funny Women founder Lynne Parker was honoured as ‘Women's Champion’ at the annual Achievers Academy for Women Awards 2012 on Friday 9th November.

Set up by business woman Jo Cameron, who came to public attention with her appearance in series two of The Apprentice, the Achievers Academy for Women organises the Awards in order to support and celebrate the achievements of women across the UK. Lynne was nominated as Women's Champion for her relentless work providing a platform for women to perform comedy and talk on public platforms. We are incredibly delighted to be able to announce that she received the award!

As Funny Women was founded with the sole aim of bringing funny women to the fore, an empowering women to use comedy and humour to increase their confidence, then it is all the more gratifying to have that recognised by a group such as the Achiever's Academy for Women.

Speaking about the reasons they chose Lynne to recieve the award, Jo Cameron said: "We love Lynne and we loved what people said about her. Women who stand out like Lynne are great role models and we are delighted that she is our women’s champion, championing women’s issues in one of the most powerful way, with humour!" (See what people said about Lynne in her nomination video below!)

Viv Groskop, writer and Funny Women Awards Finalist 2012, hosted the event magnificently, and Dr Helen Pankhurst, recently seen storming the houses of Parliament with UK Feminista (more details here!) was a special guest at the Awards and was interviewed by Viv about continuing the work of her great grandmother Emmeline Parkhurst, who led the Suffragettes in the struggle for women to get the vote.

On receiving the award for Women's Champion, Lynne Parker said: “I was surprised and delighted to receive the Women’s Champion Award as my category was full of brilliant and inspirational women who were just as deserving of this honour and as passionate about their work as I am. That said, getting this recognition comes at a really important time in Funny Women’s development as we are looking to find new and innovative ways to develop a humourous and memorable voice for women from all walks of life.”

There were ten awards in several categories spanning construction, technology, finance, leadership in the community and corporate leadership. The Overall Winner of the Achiever's Academy Awards goes deservedly to Cait Riordan, Head of Product, Sport and 2012 at the BBC who masterminded the live outside broadcasting for the London Olympics. Cait also won the Women In Engineering/Technology award for her fantastic achievements.

To read about all the awards go HERE.

See more photos from the night HERE.

Pictured: Lynne Parker with her award