Poll review and deadline

Are you sick of calendar stuff yet?

The votes are still coming in for the selection of images for the 2011 BB calendar.  I am imposing a deadline of midnight (GG time) Thursday for votes.  I will then tally and select the images for the calendar as chosen by you – announced FRIDAY along with randomly chosen comments for the print giveaways.

Can I say that some of the choices were quite intriguing – I thought I would put the current frontrunners up in this post to give you a taste of the popular votes so far.  If yours is not in the line-up, don’t panic.  (Small hint – if your computer has cached a vote already – say your partner already voted – you might need to find another computer to vote on). It’s not too late to vote for your favourite to get it up into a calendar-worthy position. Link to all polls here.

The first poll seems to be fairly clear-cut.   Near Home is the out-and-out winner so far…

Our Dust (with Violet and her ‘Pagi’) and Riders on the Ridge (featuring Salina and Dash) are pretty close for runners up.

Red Road Sky is out in front of the Roads and Views Category.  Always a favourite!

But this whole category was MUCH closer – Bottle Tree Road, Dusk Road and Rocky Tree are all within two votes.  Your choice could make all the difference here.

Freaky Oz animals – and the kookaburra well and truly had the last laugh.

Lizard Rock, Lazy Roos and Emu Run are all within three votes of each other however. Which critter appealed to you more?

The Still Life / Landscape section was a surprise for me – the Fog View won!

This wasn’t one I even considered initially – it was just making up the numbers!

Old Shed is catching up in a late surge, with Dam Reflections and Dust Mill (both faves of mine) lurking nearby.

Farm Animals was a closely contested section – Horse Drink is leading so far (reasonably convincingly)…

Cow Drink isn’t THAT far away though – just three votes behind, with my fave Bull Gossip another six votes away in third place.

Icons Odds and Exras is proving the closest of the Poll battles – with a dead heat for first position.

It really is a two-horse race in this section – not sure how I am going to split them (they may both end up in the calendar!).

Now for the Horse sections …

Gosh – you guys love to go for my less-than-technically-perfect shots, don’t you!?  Dust and Ready was another ‘last minute’ entry…

At the Angle was not far off the pace, with Brown Pair four and six votes behind respectively in the Action Section.

The final category was Other Horses (so creative!) – and I suspect I MAY have influenced this vote just a little.

Mates is streets ahead so far – but the two foal photos are neck and neck in second and third places.  Working out a way to sneak at least one of these in somewhere too!

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A couple of more things as I sort out printers and date page design this end – I have decided to donate a percentage of calendar profits to charity this year.  Last year I had such a tiny margin (I barely broke even I think) partly because I only printed a small run.  And then they sold out in just over two weeks.  This year, because I am feeling a little more confident that I might have an actual market, I am getting more printed – like a LOT more.  (And being me, I shall have a little breakdown about the quantity of calendars when a truckload of boxes arrive on my doorstep.  But let’s worry about that when the time comes, shall we?)

I am hoping that I do more than break even this year.  I will try and keep the price lower than last year by printing more (while keeping the keeping same quality as last year’s calendar).  And I will donate to HeartKids Australia and also to our school P&C.  (You can read why I support Heartkids here.  If you read this blog AT ALL, you will know that both my kids attend a very small school which depends enormously on it’s P&C and community support.)  These are both ’causes’ very close to my heart and (I think) more than worthy of my (and by default, my calendar buyers’) support.

Anyway, must away to get some work done.  Apparently there is a cattle property to help run here too. (Can anyone else hear the nagging in the background?)

♥

BB