#NFA16 Finalists Announced After Epic Nominations Phase

Wow, what a night Thursday night turned out to be. During the course of each National Fenestration Awards campaign, there’s four points in time in which the NFAs peak in general industry activity. Thursday night was one of them as we finally announced the shortlists for all 17 industry categories

Click here to go to #NFA16 categories

This was the longest nominations phase in NFA history, and it saw a record 271 nominations submitted. We tweaked the dates of the nomination and voting phases this year to try and get the most out of each, and so far that looks to have paid off.

A massive well done to all those who see themselves up there on those shortlists. Although I suppose one or two could be called longlists!

For those who still don’t know what the NFAs are all about, they are an online-based awards where the industry at the start of each calendar year submits people and companies, in 17 categories, who they believe should be put forward for people to vote as finalists later on in the year. On a specific date, myself and the team close the nominations phase down, and put together shortlists for those categories based on the industry’s submissions. The sector then gets to vote in each category to declare an overall winner. Simple. Although I co-founded it and I have small team of great people around it, we have very little to do with it! We don’t judge, decide or pontificate in any way. It the industry’s decision from the very start to the very end.

What happens now?

Here’s how the next step of this year’s National Fenestration Awards works (as per the NFA site):

Here’s where things really start to ramp up. We have already made the voting live in all 17 categories, so you can already start placing your votes to help decide this year’s #NFA16 winners. You can click here to go straight to the categories dashboard or use the menu on the left hand side.

Also, we will be contacting every single person and company to invite them to create a profile page which they can use to promote and for those sitting on the fence to read up on before placing their votes. However, as this is the biggest NFAs yet, this may take a little time. So, if you’re a finalist, please allow 10-14 days to contact you and get things set up. Once we contact you, you’ll also be sent your own “NFA Finalist” logo to display however you wish.

This year’s voting phase will run until 10pm on Wednesday 30th November. From then, we will put the site into maintenance mode as we get ready to announce this year’s winners during Winner’s Week. Winner’s Week was an experimental method of announcing last year’s winners which went very well, so we have decided to do the same thing again. This will begin from Monday 5th December, and we will announce a batch of winners each day until the Friday of that week.

This year’s winners will be treated to an excellent days hospitality at Oulton Park Race Track, racing some fantastic high performance racing cars, superb food, brilliant evening entertainment, a free bar and of course the awards presentation. Guests who attended the 2015 Winners Event called it the highlight of the year, so it’s definitely worth getting involved!

The last Winners Event was a fantastic day and evening. Certainly bigger than the first one. The one for this year’s Winners is going to be even bigger.

A small moment to reflect

The last few days for myself have been a bit of a whirlwind. The preparation required to make the NFA site is more than it appears. Not only is the physical amount of text to add/change massive, there are a ton of links around the site I have to make sure works. Then there is creating seventeen polls and embedding them on seventeen pages just to make sure everyone can vote in each category.

The task isn’t all that difficult, more a drain on time and mental energy. There is so much to think about, and it has to be right, or as right as possible, at the time of launch. I did find a bug with the voting admittedly once the shortlists were first announced, but I managed to wipe that out in under an hour. Thankfully, I only have to do this once per year.

Then there was scheduling a ton of tweets to announce the finalists of each category. Again, not difficult, but time consuming. However, after I had finished I got a rare moment to site back and watch the reactions of the people and companies as they got mentioned and confirmed as finalists for this year. It’s personally very rewarding to see people so proud of their finalist place, congratulating others, even if they are competitors. It’s one of just a few days in the NFA calendar I get to see the fruits of our labour, and I’m not afraid to say how proud the team and myself are of the work we put in. It’s not perfect by any means, but we do try and learn as we go along.

What was also great to see this year was an absolute shed load of new names in pretty much every category. The NFAs have never had two years the same when it comes to voting for finalists, and this year has proved that the reach and scope of the awards is bigger than it has ever been. A testament to the much appreciated and valued support from our sponsors and partners.

Again, another massive well done to all #NFA16 finalists, and good luck with the voting over the next 7 weeks!

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