Family values have changed over the years, but Bermudian families with good morals are still plentiful and for six weeks in May and June a competition to recognise such families will be held.

Three young businessmen - Fort Knox CEO Troy Symonds, web developer Sterlin Swan and photographer Nigel Richardson - have come together to launch the first "Family First" campaign which is being promoted by the Family Internet Service (FKBnet) and Creative Photography.

The campaign is designed to promote family values and showcase some of the Bermudian families throughout the island. Each week a selection of families who live in a chosen parish will be featured on the website www.bermudacentral.com.

Families photos and a short biography of that family will be shown on the site, highlighting career aspirations, religious beliefs and a comment from that family on "how to keep families together".

The internet audience will be invited to log on to the website and vote for the family in their parish that most encourages them. The site will be opened to receive votes on Fridays at 9 a.m., with the last votes received at 9 p.m. on Saturday.

Together with the internet audience, a selection panel will vote for the outstanding families in each parish, with weekly prizes including a complimentary family photo from Creative Photography, dinner for the entire family and a month's free internet service with FKBnet. There will also be the "Family First" grand prize winner.

The idea of such a contest has been discussed by the trio for about a month. Ironically, it comes at a time when the family structure is under seige.

"It was about how to promote our businesses, primarily, and one way of coming up with promotions and new ways of marketing, we thought, would be to fucus on something we all have a common interest in," said Mr. Symonds, CEO of Fort Knox.

"We all certainly have a common interest in promoting families. As a result we decided we would use all of our skillsets to provide something we think, and everyone is saying now, is lacking in Bermuda. We really want to encourage family values."

The trio compliment each other and bring something different to the project.

"Sterlin has been doing websites for a number of years and he is a part of the philosophy we want to promote," said Mr. Symonds. "He will be doing the websites and Nigel already owns and operates Creative Photography.

"With that we threw out what we think is an excellent contest that will reach out to all the families. One of the major issues was that families have changed in the traditional way over many years. That was our first hurdle, how do we view a family and what does it consist of, and we decided we would be somewhat flexilble and enable people to put in what their family was.

"We're promoting not just the look of a family but also the philisophy of it. So after we get a picture of this family we want them to also put forward in 40 words what their philisophy is on keeping families together, whatever they think will be inspiring to other families... and that's what it will be judged on. Primarily it is going to be judged on philosophy."

Said Mr. Richardson: "We're going to have a panel of judges to judge the families in each of the nine parishes. We're going to find a family to represent each parish and then there will be an overall family for the whole Island."

The community will cast their votes on the website, making up 40 per cent of the voting with the other 60 per cent coming from the judges.

Added Mr. Richardson: "As a photographer, I come across families all the time, not just whole families but broken families of single mothers and single fathers or grandmothers raising grandchildren.

"So, for me it was a way to try to bring that wholeness back together. Even though it may not be a traditional family of mother, father, daughter and son - the Little House On The Prairie type family - there are still good families out there.

"I just thought I could find something to help put back some of the values. A lot of people really cherish family photos and I thought this was something I could do to help to bring that back together."

Throughout the Island there are a number of families that represent the true meaning of family, with the parents being good nurturers for their children.

"Certainly we recognise there are certain qualities that are required to keep any family together and violence is certainly not one of those things," acknowledged Mr. Symonds.

"We recognise there are things that are needed and what we're trying to do is not just promote those individual families but also promote good values. What we're looking for is the philisophy that we will be promoting and we're going to be asking people to judge based on the philosophy.

"It is one of the initiatives that we hope will get people thinking more about families. Everybody's talking about it, it is topical and this is just an initiative that has been born out of all that discussion."

Mr. Symonds and Mr. Richardson grew up in the same Pembroke neighbourhood at a time when neighbours looked out for each other's children. Nowadays neighbours are more inclined to keep to themselves.

"The community plays such a key role," Mr. Symonds accepts. "Nigel and I grew up near each other and when his brother got in a terrible accident and the community at large - all of Spanish Point - came out to help.

"Some of that sentiment's been lost, I agree, but we can build it back. It's a matter of reaching out and celebrating, as opposed to trying to tear down and say that a family is not tradition or `why it's not like mine'.

"The judging is not based on the look of a family, it's based on what the philisophy is for holding the family together."

Mr. Symonds admits the Bermuda family is under seige. "And with that the communities are not as close," he said.

"There was a time when there were strong families and strong communities. Then it moved to reasonably strong families with a weaker community and now we seem to be in a position where there are fewer traditionally strong families in communities."

Each week a representative from Fort Knox and Creative Photography will join DJ's on morning radio shows to inform listeners of the campaign and encourage them to log on to www.bermudacentral.com and vote for the family that most encourages them.

"One of the things that is exciting about it is it will be on the internet and we're anticipating lots of pictures and philosophies," said Mr. Symonds

"Sterlin is the key here because he has done a number of different sites like this."

Mr. Swan assured: "We're getting it all together and working on exactly how we're going to do it."