I

am pleased to invite you to enter IPC Media’s annual Shooting Industry Awards. Now in its 17th year, the awards are a celebration of the Shooting Industry’s continued achievements and innovations throughout 2011.

The awards evening will take place on Thursday, 17th May 2012 at the Bell House Hotel, Beaconsfield, which has proved to be a convenient and popular venue. Official invitations will be sent in due course but please put the date in your diaries for what promises to be another enjoyable evening.

Every year we take a hard look at the awards to ensure they remain relevant and this year I am happy to announce two new awards as well as changes to a couple of categories:

• NEW - Best Gundog Product
Dogs are an intrinsic part of shooting and we felt it important to recognise this sector of the market, so if you launched the new must have product from dummy to kennel please enter this category.

• NEW - Shooting Personality of the Year
Sponsored by The Field, this award will be given to the man or woman who has contributed most to the sport throughout 2011. Readers will be invited to nominate candidates via traditional methods as well as online. The final winner will be selected by Jonathan Young, Editor of The Field.

• Best Gun Shop
We have also taken another look at the hotly contested Best Gun Shop category and this year we launched, via our print and online brands, a campaign to find the Best Regional Gun Shop within seven regions of the UK. Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, the North, the Midlands, the South East and the South West. The winners will be announced in March and the Best UK Gun Shop will be selected from the regional winners and announced at the award ceremony on 17th May The overall winner will be chosen from this pool of winning regional winners who will be announced before the award ceremony on 17th May. Please don’t worry if you have missed this change, you can still enter your shop via this entry form as the deadline is the 24th February.

• Best Website
This category will be judged by Barnaby Dracup, editor of IPC’s market leading shooting media website www.shootinguk.co.uk.

The awards judging panel remains a mixture of our highly respected editors - Robin Scott, Will Hetherington and Alastair Balmain, and experts from the world of shooting. This year our external judges are Jason Harris, John Walker and Bruce Potts and I will remain the chair of the judging panel.

As with all awards, the only way to win is to enter, so please do take the time to complete the form by entering online here (click the button on the right). Only applications made on the official form (print or online) will be judged. These are professional awards and a professional level of entry is expected. Sending your latest press release will not suffice. I do urge you to read the criteria of the category you are entering as they form the basis of the judge’s decision. Please let me also remind you to send your product samples (if required) – we will not be able to judge your entry without it. All products sent will of course be returned after the awards.

The closing date for entries is February 24th 2012.

It just leaves me now to wish you all the best of luck and I hope to see you on the 17th May.
 

Best wishes

Fiona Mercer
Publisher, IPC Media Shooting Portfolio

 
Click the category titles above for description and judging criteria details.