Q&A – How the Awards Work

We’ve put together a list of handy Q&A regarding the awards nominations, judging process and ceremony. You should find the answers to any questions below. We’ve now added a special section on How to fill in the online application too. Please scroll down to access that. If after reading through you still have a query, please contact us via the Contact Page.

NB! To nominate a business for the 2024 awards please click here!

 

When do 2024 nominations open and close?

Nominations for 2024 open on 9am Thursday 4 January. They’re open for two weeks and will close at 9am on Thursday 18 January.

When is the deadline for entering the 2024 awards?

Once a business has been nominated, they can enter via our online form up until the deadline of 11am on Monday 29 January. Please be aware that any submissions received after that point will not be entered into the awards.

When does the 2024 ceremony take place?

The 2024 Ribble Valley Business Awards ceremony will take place on Thursday 21 March at Mytton Fold Hotel, Langho.

How do you nominate a business for the 2024 awards?

When nomination opens you can nominate a business either by clicking on the Nominate tab on the navigation bar, or on the Nominate Now button on the homepage. Before nominations open, and after they close, the tab and button will not be available.

What consitutes a Ribble Valley business?

The awards are open to all Ribble Valley based businesses and not for profit organisations. One of the three criteria below must apply to a business for it to be eligible for nomination / entry to the awards

1. They have business premises for which they pay business rates to Ribble Valley Council

2. They do not have business premises, their business address is their home address and they pay council tax to Ribble Valley Council

3. They do not pay business rates or council tax to Ribble Valley Council, they own / operate a purchased business franchise for the Ribble Valley area and deliver services in physical locations in the Ribble Valley

NB! We use a Local Authority checker on the .gov.uk website to ascertain which council the business is under, this can be accessed here to check a given business’s location

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Can I nominate businesses based outside of the Ribble Valley?

Ribble Valley Business Awards celebrates businesses and organisations within the Ribble Valley. Only businesses located within the Ribble Valley can enter. If nominated businesses fall outside of this remit, they won’t be shouted-out or invited to enter the awards.

Can I nominate my own business?

Nominations can be made by anyone outside of your business, why not ask a supplier or customer to nominate you. They don’t nominate you for a given award, a nomination entitles you to enter all categories you’re eligible for. See below for more information.

How many businesses can I nominate?

Please nominate as many businesses as you like, the more the merrier! To nominate again, just refresh / reload the Nomination page after nominating.

Is it good to nominate businesses multiple times - does the awards count that as votes?

There is no voting aspect to the awards. A nomination entitles the nominated business to enter the awards. See below for how the awards are judged.

I live outside of the Ribble Valley, can I nominate a business?

Yes, of course. Nominations can be made by anyone.

What happens when a business is nominated?

Nominated businesses will receive an official shoutout on Facebook. They can enter directly using the Learn More button on our Facebook profile header. If businesses are not on Facebook, they will receive an email from the RVBA volunteer team with details on how to enter. If you are not on Facebook but know you have been officially nominated, please check your junk or spam folder for your official email, this may take 3 or 4 days to arrive. If you use Gmail be aware it has three different folders – Inbox, Promotions and Social. It is likely that our announcement email will go into the Promotions folder.

I've been nominated! What happens next?

If you’ve had your official nomination shout-out on our Facebook page, or (if you’re not on Facebook) been contacted by email by the RVBA team, you can register on this website then fill in an online application form if you’d like to enter the awards. You can register at this link.

Once the form has been submitted online you will be officially entered into the awards. All entry forms must be submitted by the deadline as given above.

Which categories can businesses enter?

Nominated businesses / organisations can enter as many categories as they are eligible for. The online form has the details of each category and you tick the ones you’d like to enter. View all Categories at this link.

As the awards effectively recognise the ‘best’ business in a given category, it’s important that businesses have been running for a period of time. Thus many (not all) of the awards require businesses to have been trading prior to 1 September 2022.

This will allow the independent judging panel to assess business performance (and improvements in it), and progress towards business objectives. For businesses who started trading since then, the New Business category is the main one to enter – Creative Business, Made in Ribble Valley and Social Media Champion are also open to all businesses, regardless of longevity.

How are the entries judged and shortlisted?

Our core panel of judges from across the Ribble Valley will read through all entry forms and decide, collectively, on who should be shortlisted. For each award, the judging panel will also include the sponsor.

When will the shortlisted businesses / finalists be announced?

The shortlisted businesses / finalists for each category will be announced via social media on Thursday 15 February 2024.

How are the winners decided?

A designated Judgement Day will see the judges meet with each sponsor throughout the day to discuss and debate the winner of each category. This information will remain Top Secret until winners are revealed at the awards ceremony.

What time will the awards ceremony start?

For our live ceremony, the doors and bar will normally open at 5.45pm. We will sit down at 6.30pm with the meal served from 6.45pm. The awards will be presented between 8.45pm and 10.45pm. The final award to be presented will be the Beacon Award.

How do we buy tickets for the 2024 Awards Ceremony?

Ticket booking will open once the finalists are announced. Businesses shortlisted for an award automatically get allocated one free ticket to the ceremony and will be given the option to purchase additional guest tickets.

Ticket priority is given to finalists and sponsors, it is unlikely that general admission tickets will be available. Tickets can be purchased online, via a unique link, which will be sent to finalists once announced.

Q&A – How to Enter The Awards Online

We changed to online entry in 2022 which was highly successful. We’ve put together a list of handy Q&A below to give you all the information you might need. If after reading through you still have a query, please contact us via the Contact Page.

Why has RVBA changed to online entry? Can I enter offline?

We wanted to make it easier to enter the awards. Our online form is a smart-form and will help you decide which of the many award categories to enter (you are welcome to enter as many as you are eligible for). You can also save the form at any time, and return to it later. We no longer offer the functionality to enter offline / manually.

The deadline for entries is Monday 29 January at 11am

Once a business has been nominated and officially shouted-out on our FB page, or contacted by email by the RVBA team, they can enter via our online form. Forms can be submitted up until the deadline of 11am on Monday 29 January. Please be aware that any submissions received after that point will not be entered into the awards.

How can I enter online?

You will need to have been nominated and officially shouted out on our Facebook page first. All official 2024 nominees will be fully listed by 5pm on Thursday 18 January at this link.

All nominees can then register as a user on this website on our User Registration page and enter the awards from there.

Which categories can I enter?

Nominated businesses / organisations can enter as many categories as they are eligible for. The online form has the details of each category on the second page and you tick the ones you’d like to enter.

As the awards effectively recognise the ‘best’ business in a given category, it’s important that businesses have been running for a period of time. Thus many (not all) of the awards require businesses to have been trading prior to 1 September 2022.

This will allow the independent judging panel to assess business performance (and improvements in it), and progress towards business objectives. For businesses who started trading since then, the New Business category is the main one to enter – Creative Business, Made in Ribble Valley and Social Media Champion are also open to all businesses, regardless of longevity.

Where will I find the online Entry Form?

Entries can be made after 4 January by nominated businesses. Once they have registered as Users (see above), they can locate the entry form at this link

How do I navigate through the online form?

The MOVE ON TO NEXT PAGE button will save progress and take you to the next page (it is located bottom right of each page). You need to fill in the fields on that page before progressing

The PREVIOUS PAGE button will take you to the previous page (located bottom left of each page). This is handy if you’d like to check or amend any answers

The SAVE PROGRESS & EXIT button allows you to save the form, close the window and return to it later (it is located underneath the last question on each page, above the PREVIOUS PAGE button). Return to the form at any time

The SUBMIT button on the last page must be clicked to fully submit the form and enter the awards (once you’re happy with your answers). 

How many pages does the online form have?

There are five main Page Headings which are displayed at the top of the form. They are General Info, Judging Info (1) & (2), Categories, and Last Page.

Some award categories, eg. Customer Friendly Business have extra questions to answer. These will be added as Page Headings. So, depending on the categories you choose to enter, you may have extra Page Headings, or may not.

 

Can you navigate through form using the Page Headings?

You can only navigate through the form using the Page Headings if you have already filled in the given page. When returning to the form after saving, you can click a Page Heading to get to the page you need, or just scroll down and click the NEXT button until you reach the desired page

How do you submit your online form & what happens?

The SUBMIT button on the last page must be clicked to fully submit the form and enter the awards, once you’re happy with your answers.

The screen will display a ‘Successful submission’ message and the form will have been submitted. You will also be sent an email confirmation. If you cannot see the email please check your junk/spam folders – if using Gmail you will need to check the Promotions inbox too (Gmail has three inboxes).

If you do NOT receive a confirmation email after submission (and checking junk etc), please click the Contact tab and advise us via email and we can check the system and manually confirm receipt for you.

If you go back into the form you may still be able to see your answers, this is not a fault and you do not need to resubmit.

The deadline for submission is given above.

Help I've lost my password!

If you’ve lost your password you can reset it using the email address you registered with here: Reset Password

I'm having problems with my online form!

AlsWe have had (thankfully!) very few issues with the online forms, we have had a few technical quirks reported though, the information below should help:

Most text box fields have a word count on them. This should function just fine on desktops and laptops but on the odd occasion it may not function as expected on mobile devices or iPads. If you are using a mobile phone or iPad and the word count isn’t working please don’t worry, just fill the fields in as normal. Using a desktop or laptop and it isn’t working? The form counts words as you type – so if you’ve written your information somewhere else in a text editor (for example, in a Microsoft Word document) – then have copied and pasted it into the form, it may get confused and not show correctly. If there’s a word count on the text editor you’re using then that will help you stay within the word count. If there isn’t, then as long as you’ve not copied War and Peace it’s fine!

Paragraph formatting on mobile devices. We’ve had a few reports of people going back into their forms and seeing their formatted paragraphs / answers having lost line breaks and morphing into one large paragraph. Don’t worry about this, it sorts out at our end.

If you are having any other problems while you’re filling in the form, please click the SAVE PROGRESS & EXIT button at the bottom of the page. Then clear your browser cache and log back in via this User Login page link using the email and password you registered with. You can then re-access your form from that page.

If you’re having problems accessing your form, clear your browser cache and log back in via this User Login page link using the email and password you registered with and you should be able to reaccess the form from that link once signed back in.

If you’ve lost your password you can reset it here: Reset Password using the email address you registered with

If you’re having a problem submitting your completed form using the SUBMIT button, please check all fields have been filled in and none have an error mesage. Also check that the Number of Employees field contains a number, not text.  If you can’t see a problem, please click the SAVE PROGRESS & EXIT button at the bottom of the page. Then clear your browser cache and log back in using the email and password you registered with at our User Login page. Page back through the form, then try the SUBMIT button again. It should work then. Contact the team via the Contact page if problems persist, please send your email address and password and we’ll sort it for you.

If you do not receive a confirmation email after SUBMITTING your form (after checking junk/spam/promotions folders etc) please click the contact tab and send us an email with your company name and can we check it’s submitted properly for you. We are aware that some Gmail address users are not receiving emails. We will be able to check the system and confirm receipt of the form for you.

 

Thank you to our 2024 Award & Ceremony Sponsors

We are very grateful to our Sponsors, whose support allows us to deliver the awards administration and ceremony, year on year. Our Headline Sponsor for 2024 is Stones Young Sales & Lettings.

The awards are run by the lovelocalsolutions group with the support of many volunteers and organisations across the borough. If you'd like to help celebrate our wonderful Ribble Valley Businesses, do take a look at our Sponsorship Opportunities by clicking here.

 

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