Essay Contest Rules & Guidelines
We should start by saying the main objective here is to have some fun and share a little of our summer adventures with each other. Winning a prize, or an award is a good thing and I hope that all of our contestants try really hard and turn in a great entry. But, the best part is the sharing of your story with family and that?s what this is all about.
Who is eligible?
Any registered member of Your Kimbrell FamilyForum who is currently going to school will be eligible to enter the Essay Contest, this includes grades K-12 and college/university students as well.
So, if you are not already a member all you need do is join the FamilyForum and then write and submit your essay.
Tip:If you have family members who have not yet joined the FamilyForum perhaps you can encourage them to do so and then they can vote for your entry when the contest closes and the voting begins.
The age limit will be set at 25yrs as the cutoff age.
? no offence intended to any older students that may be among us, I was in my last ?official? class at age 64.
The contestants will be assigned to one of three groups based on their grade level for this upcoming school year as follows:
Group #1 = K through 6
Group #2 = 7 through 12
Group #3 = college/university
So, if you are starting the 7th grade this session that puts you in group #2 and if you are starting your first year of college/university that puts you in group #3.
How long will the contest run?
The contest will be open for posting entries as soon as it is posted to the Contest Board.
There will be a Topic started for each group where the essay's for that group can be posted and each of the three group Topic's will remain open for entries until 09/16/2006 midnight EST and then the polls will be posted and opened for voting the following day. The polls will remain open for one week, closing on 09/23/2006, midnight EST.
The results will be posted on the FamilyForum the next day and an email notice will be sent out as well.
?please note that every possible effort will be made to keep to this schedule, so make your plans accordingly.
Also, please note?. Once you have submitted your entry you will not be able to edit the content, so check it with care.
Please note: The ?Modify message? timer was set to a very short time period and was causing problems, it was still on the forum default setting from when I originally installed the forum. So I re-set it to a longer time but there were still problems, not only here on the Contest Board but in other parts of the forum as well, so I have re-set it again? this time to 24 hours.
That means that when you make a new Topic, or post a reply to a topic you can return anytime within 24 hours and modify your message.
Content:
Your essay can be about anything that you did over the summer vacation from school, we would especially love to hear about any trips you took, projects you were involved in and family you visited. The more fun you had, the more we want to hear about it.
How long should entries be?
Essays should be at least 300 words, but no longer than 500 for K-6 (group #1) and for groups #2 & #3 the essays should be at least 600 words, but no longer than 2500 words, including any footnotes.
Note: For the very young the main objective will be their participation, so if they summit an entry that is short on word count their age will be one of the factors used to consider their entry.
What style is most appropriate?
Entries need not be technical or demonstrate hyper-specialized scholarship, the objective here is to communicate to the rest of us the interesting places you went, things you saw, the fun you had and most importantly of all, the family members that you visited.
It should also be said that good scholarship is important, so if you want to pay attention to content, tone, and style then it will surely make your entry more appealing to everyone else as they decide who to vote for.
You can include (upload) two medium (640x480) pictures with your entry if you wish, but they are not required.
*One note here about help with your entry:
It?s OK if you get help from your Mom or Dad (or someone else) with your entry because this is a family thing ya know.
Also worth mentioning at this point is the fact that many of you will be asked by your teacher to do an essay, or report, about your summer vacation and turn it in at class? so can you use the same essay/report for school and then use it here on the FamilyForum??? Well, of course you can!
How will essays be judged?
By popular vote of the FamilyForum membership.
There will be three separate polls posted in the forum, (one for each of the 3 groups) where all registered members of the FamilyForum will be able to cast a vote for their favorite entry in each of the three category?s. Anyone who is a member can vote, including the contestants themselves. There will be only one vote allowed by each member in each of the three category?s and the system is designed so that there can only be one vote cast by each member in a poll? in other words, if you try to vote for the same essay twice, it won?t work.
The judging may need to be tailored and refined based on the number of entries we have in each of the three groups and should fall into one of the two scenario?s listed below:
*Scenario #1:
If there are only a few entries in a group, say 6 or less, then all of the entries will be listed in the poll and you will be able to cast your vote for any one of the entries.
*Scenario #2:
If a group has lots of entries it may be necessary to do a ?pre-judging? of the entries to make the list for the poll short enough to be manageable.
At this point it is my intent to have ALL entries posted in the poll?s, so hopefully we do not need to do any trimming to make it work out.
Any pre-judging will be conducted by the Judging Commitee, G-Ma Kay and me...
And, please be assured that we will only perform judging committee duties if no other way is available to resolve an issue and we will make every effort to be fair and balanced in any deliberations necessary.
Hopefully this ?Rules & Guidelines? document covers all the potential issues and makes any intervention unnecessary.
Awards
The amounts currently listed are just the preliminary numbers and should go up during the contest period as we receive prize money donations from family members. In fact, if you wish to help out with a donation of any amount we would be most appreciative and I?m sure the contestants would be also.
For First Place in each of the three groups there will be a cash award of $25 in the form of a cash card from Target Stores.
For Second Place in each group the award will be $10
For Third Place in each group the award will be $5 ...see the reply below for new prize amounts
All who participate will receive a Certificate that will be suitable for framing.
We encourage any FamilyForum members who are able to donate to the prize fund so that we can offer larger prize amounts to the contestants.
