A KIDS club has been praised for its innovative website.

Billingham Kids Club, near Stockton, has been chosen as The Northern Echo's Pick Of The Month and has received a digital camera as a prize.

Nearly 2,200 community groups have websites on the Echo's Communigate host site, which allows them to create a webpage for free.

Judges from The Northern Echo chose the Billingham Kids Club site as one of the best they had seen because of the amount of information and the innovative use of pictures.

The site has picture galleries, message boards, event information, a guest book and news.

One feature of the website focuses on the work the children, whose ages range from seven to 16, undertake as volunteer helpers at the Billingham Folklore Festival, which attracts dancers and singers from across the world.

Another section examines the work of Chris Stubbs, from Billingham, who works in Sri Lanka helping people with disabilities for mental health charity, Mencap. Members of the youth club support the project and receive regular updates.

The group is run by mother-of-three Linda Pickering, who said: "It's just a lovely, lovely club and we have lots of good fun, if I say so myself. It's great to win the Pick of the Month award, we find the website very useful."

The Communigate website is for not-for-profit community groups and associations in the North-East and North Yorkshire. Visit www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk to find out more.