The nominations deadline for this year’s National Fenestration Awards is 10pm tonight. This has been the longest nominations phase in the NFAs history, and it looks like it’s going to be a record year.
Massively diverse
Obviously we won’t be letting slip on who will have made it through to the final shortlists phase until next Thursday, which is when we publish the lists and voting. But I do have access to the nominations so far, and I can say that this is the most diverse crop of submissions from the industry that we have ever had.
We anticipate that the final shortlists are going to be the most diverse we have ever had. And that really is the basis of one of the founding principles of the National Fenestration Awards. To find some of the lesser known names in our industry, but who do some very good work and reward and promote that. We are of course a much larger industry than just the names we know.
Click here to nominate in this year’s National Fenestration Awards
This is the fourth NFA campaign since it’s launch in 2013. Since then engagement has grown to nearly 3000 unique registered users, which would make it the most participated-in industry awards. Last year over 3600 votes were cast to decide the winners, and there is no reason why that won’t break the 4000 barrier this time round. The 17 categories makes it the most all-inclusive and representative awards too.
We also have some ideas to expand the NFA categories for next year. We’ll comment on that closer to the time, but these potential new categories will see the awards reach new areas of the sector that have been previously untouched.
What happens next
Once the nominations phase closes at 10pm tonight, I’ll be putting the NFA site into maintenance mode and removing all nomination related materials. Once that has been completed, I’ll put the website back to normal. We’ll also be announcing the winner of the September Cool Wall and making the October Cool Wall live, which will also be the penultimate monthly Cool Wall of this year.
The NFA team will be holding a meeting early next week to collect all the nominations and from there create the shortlists based on those nominations. The companies and people who have the most nominations will be put through, those with the least will not have made the cut this year.
Once we have completed that task, we will be readying the NFA site for the announcement of the shortlists on Thursday 6th October. We will also be making the voting phase live that evening. Registered users will then have until Friday 30th November to vote once in each category, that a potential 17 votes per registered user, to decide this year’s winners.
Last year’s voting phase was the biggest yet. With a growing registered user base and even bigger reach this year, we are aiming for over 4000 votes this year.
Energy
It’s been great to see the massive energy around the awards in recent weeks. The NFAs are a year-long campaign, so naturally there are peaks and troughs. But it’s this period in the campaign, when the nominations phase comes to a close, when the industry really steps it up five gears and we see massive spikes in traffic and nomination submissions.
Once the voting phase goes live next week we’ll see another big spike in energy. This is also one of my favourite periods of the campaign as we get to inform companies of their success in making it to the shortlists phase. So many companies go to social media to express their happiness at the news. It demonstrates to all of us how much the NFAs means to so many people. It’s quite rewarding to see it unfold.
So, if you still haven’t taken part but think this is something you should be giving a go, click here to go to the NFA website, spend a minute registering, and help find and reward some of the industry’s best people and companies.
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