Now that the word is out and people are aware that there is a club Web Site Contest, I feel confident that there may be twice as many entries for the 2010 contest. The name of the contest is now officially changed to “AFMS Web Site Contest,” and the Entry Form, Score Sheet, and Score Sheet Guidelines are all greatly modified—the judges and Contest Chairs evaluated the forms used during the 2009 contest and suggested major improvements. So the 2010 contest is even more focused on creating Web sites that greatly benefit their clubs.

All of last year’s regional Webmasters Contest Committee Members agreed to continue in their positions for 2010 (except me, and Dale Watts is taking over as Committee Chair for the Rocky Mountain Federation), and they are the ones running the regional Web Site Contests. The Committee Members receive the entries, they forward the entries to the judges for that region, they receive from the judges the completed score sheets, and they rank the results and award the first-place plaque and the certificates (places one through ten and honorable mention) at the Bulletin Editors’ and Webmasters’ Breakfast at their regional federation’s annual show. The first-place entry is forwarded to the AFMS level for judging.

The Committee Members will be notifying the regional newsletter editor plus the webmasters, editors, and club presidents in their region about the details of the contest, the due date for entries, and of the schedule for their regional contest. Each Committee Member sets the due dates for his or her federation’s contest.

Members of the Webmasters Contest Committee are as follows:

Contact the Committee Member for your region for information about the contest and the deadlines. This information varies by region according to when their annual show is scheduled.

Webmasters wishing to enter their Web sites into the contest should download from the AFMS Web site (or from their regional federation’s Web site) the contest Score Sheet Guidelines, the Entry Form, and the Score Sheet form. These are in PDF format, and they can be opened with Adobe Acrobat Reader®. Free Acrobat Reader software is available at http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/. The contest information on the AFMS Web site can be found at http://www.amfed.org/web/website_contest.htm.

To enter the contest, the webmaster needs to fill out the Entry Form completely and fill out the information requested in the top part of the Score Sheet, both front and back. These forms can be filled-in on your computer and saved to your hard drive. Note: Use Acrobat Reader 9 to be able to modify the saved forms later if necessary. Send the TWO completed forms as e‑mail attachments to your regional Committee Member before the due date for your region. IMPORTANT: Every entrant and every judge must thoroughly read and understand the Score Sheet Guidelines. This document explains exactly what each scored item is looking for and why it is important to a good Web site.

Having two judges for each region worked out quite well last year, so I plan to do the same again this year. Neither judge will be judging entries from his or her own region. The two judges’ scores for each contestant will be averaged.

If you are a current (or former) webmaster or are very Web-site savvy, please help make the 2010 contest a success by volunteering a little of your time to act as a judge. Read the Score Sheet Guidelines to see what the judges will be looking for on the sites that they judge, and contact me at pgeorge4comcast.net to help this new contest be an even bigger success in its second year.

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