People's Choice
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Once again in 2012, we're featuring a Friday evening People's Choice event to raise funds for Meals on Wheels and Operation BBQ Relief! The 2011 event was a HUGE success in raising funds for Meals on Wheels and the United Way of Pleasant Hill. We had the public lined up across the fairgrounds! Once again, we'll be doing pulled pork and chicken wing categories. We hope to have a sponsor in place soon! We will operate in much the same way as the previous two - you may cook your pork ahead of time and bring it ready to re-heat once you arrive. Although we will give each entered People's Choice team one butt, we HIGHLY ENCOURAGE you to bring at least two or three butts already cooked and pulled or chunked to turn in on Friday evening. We also highly encourage you to bring additional wings to cook., Remember, if you run out of food, you're losing votes! To keep things fair and not allow someone to bring in a crowd of people to vote for their entry, judging will again be blind with teams turning in their pans of meat to contest volunteers, this time directly to the sampling/voting area. The entries will be numbered and only contest officials will know who's entry matches each number. Teams who have registered to participate in People's Choice will NOT be allowed into the judging area! The public will each pay $5 for each 12 tickets and will be given two poker chips per paid person. They will be allowed to sample all entries they want from approximately 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM Friday evening. They will place their poker chip in a container next to the wing and pork entries they prefer. The winning entries will be announced during the Awards Ceremony on Saturday. Last year, the champion of each category was paid $150. This year's winnings will again be determined by the number of entries and HOPEFULLY a sponsor! One other thing to keep in mind... last year, we watched the public pass over pans of food that didn't look appetizing. While appearance isn't a criterion in People's Choice, keep in mind that when there are 15 to 20 wing and pork entries each, they will likely not try EVERY entry so make sure your's looks good! To enter, each category, be sure to choose the dropdown menu for the people's choice on your online entry form. You will be billed $15 per category with funds going back to the winners. Because we are expanding this contest and because it is so popular with the public, we encourage as many teams as possible to enter at least one of the two categories! Come on, folks, it's for charity! It also heavily draws the public which in turn encourages sponsors to keep on sponsoring us and allowing for a bigger and better contest each year!!! |