The final entries arrived just before the midnight deadline last night. Thanks to everyone who completed the questionnaire. All entrants receive a “we’re feeding pollinators” lawn sign from the Pollinators Paradise Project. If you already have a sign, you get a special “Monarch Awards” sticker to put on it.
To address last year’s problems with photo file size and to make it easier to compare the entry responses, this year we decided to go with professional software. LimeSurvey looked like a good open source solution. It gave us the consistency and easy administration we needed– but it did have glitches. We understand there were some issues with LimeSurvey not accepting photos and not saving responses. It apparently did not play nice with Ipads and the interface needed tweaking. If we continue with a detailed questionnaire next year, it’s clear we’ll need to rethink the “technology” aspect– or figure out how to hire a software developer. In the meantime, we have a whole lot of excellent gardens to look at!
Here are the next steps:
– review the entries for eligibility. Is the garden within the appropriate ward boundaries? Is it a residential garden?
– clean up the data. Fix email, address, name, and phone formats. Complete any necessary data entry
– provide questionnaire responses to Technical Committee
– Technical Committee reviews entries and photos and decides on which gardens should receive a visit
– Judging team arranges visits with home owner
– winner and runners-up announced
We expect the process to take about three weeks. So hold on, enjoy your gardens and, if you haven’t already done so, check out the resources page on this web site for information on how to make your garden even more nature-friendly.