Get to Awards Night With Judging Done and Every Winner Ready

A 30-minute session that counts back from awards night, so your judges, scorecards, decisions and winner details are in place before the week of the event. Every registrant gets a planning calendar to fill in with your own awards night date.

Awards night is the one date on an association's calendar that doesn't move. Everything before it has to land in order: categories and criteria, the nomination form, the call for nominations, letters of support, judges, one or two rounds of scoring, decisions, and winners confirmed with headshots and bios.

Awards seasons rarely run late because someone dropped the ball. They run late because the season isn't on one calendar, so judges get asked after nominations close and scoring wraps the week the program goes to print.

This session is built around two of the five dimensions of Review Integrity, a framework for judging whether an application and review process is fair, consistent and defensible.

The first is Reviewer Calibration: are your judges lined up, assigned and working from the same scorecard before nominations close? Judges recruited at the last minute get a short window and a stack of nominations, and each one fills in the gaps their own way.

The second is Decision Traceability: could anyone on your team show how each winner was chosen? When scoring happens in a rush, the record of why often lives in one person's spreadsheet.

When the timeline slips, the cost lands on the people you're trying to honor. Judges score in a hurry, and some don't come back next year. A winner's name or title goes on stage wrong, in front of the members who nominated them. Staff spend awards week chasing scores and photos instead of hosting. And when a member asks why their nominee didn't win, there's no clear answer to give.

Whatever is in place when nominations open is what your awards run on all season. Count back from awards night, and the time to start is earlier than most teams expect.

In This 30-Minute Session, You'll Learn How To:

• Set every date first, counted back from awards night: nominations, letters, judging rounds, decisions and winner notification
• Write and weight the criteria for each award, and show members what counts before they nominate
• Give letters of support their own deadline, so a late letter doesn't sink an on-time nomination
• Assign judges by category before nominations close, each with the same weighted scorecard
• Keep judging on schedule, and spot a judge scoring far harder or easier than the rest
• Collect winner acceptances, headshots and bios before the program goes to print, with every decision on record

You'll also see how Reviewr's team builds your awards from the forms you already use, in about 30 days.

What You'll Get

The Awards Season Timeline, a planning calendar you can fill in with your own awards night date.

Who Should Attend

Association staff who run member awards and recognition programs, in membership, programs, events, foundation or communications roles, plus awards committee chairs and volunteer judges.

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