Alfie over at Moblog alerted me to the UK Catalyst Awards, which are in their words, awards for: “inspiring stories of people who help their community by using social technology in new and exciting ways.” It’s a government-sponsored initiative and it’s great to see that these innovative grassroots sites and communities, and the shortlist shows plenty of really good sites.

Some of them use the power of the web bring people together – such as School of Everything or Slivers of Time – whether it’s finding someone to teach you something or a way of finding extra work. Others bring together people and those in power, like Patient Opinion and Where Is My Public Servant?, while others help people find out what’s around them in their area, such as Groups Near You and Big Art Mob (which Alfie is involved with).

That’s just a taste of what is a very good range of projects; although some of them have very local or specific outlooks, they all have the community in mind: whether big or small they work along the same simple philosophy of finding a need and filling it. I recommend taking a tour through the very-well designed website and voting for your favourite in the People’s Choice award. The full awards are announced some time this month (I couldn’t find a date on the website – if anyone knows let us know in the comments!) so keep an eye out for them.