Rick O’Shea is first to be thanked. 6 years of being MC, not charging a penny and making his own way to the awards each time. Rick nominates a charity if we do better than break even. Thank you Rick.
Brian Green has been our sound man and DJ for the past 6 years and makes it all work well.
Ryan Whalley is the photo guru. Makes everyone look pretty.
Fran Hollywood is the blow-in to the group but has been supplying props for the past few years to the Blogs and the Web Awards. Customised props make the Awards go to Eleven.
Here are the rogues on stage:
The above four people are so easy to work with. You give them a date, a theme and they turn up on the day and just work without having to be told what needs doing.
John Blackbourn is the web guru that does all the Blog Awards machinations and judging systems. Without him we’d still be on excel sheets.
I’ll probably forget someone else too, sorry in advance. Remind me and I’ll add your name. I do have a dodgy brain!
Thanks to Alexia, Elana, Suzy, Steven D, Stephen B, Charles, John Williams, Andrew, Klara, Tommy, Eolai and more who have helped out over the past 6 years too.
Thanks to the sponsors who have continually supported the Awards for the past few years, to those that volunteer to judge and to those that nominate blogs they like and love.
This year a special thanks to Jacqui from WhatsOnNI, to the staff in the Europa (Esp Tina) showing how hotels can easily look after a Blog Awards, to Davy MacDonald for the graphics work, Grannymar for scouting hotels, to Curious Cupcakes for making the cupcakes this year and to Island Clothing for the t-shirts to give away to the audience. If you want your own Blog Awards t-shirt, see their store. Thanks too to BT for the WiFi vouchers. Don’t forget too to buy some of the Eolai paintings that were on display.
To the bloggers who blog to express, to share and to bridge divides, if you didn’t exist, the awards would not. Thank you and keep going.
Rick O’Shea is also the last to be thanked. Through the slings and arrows Rick makes sure that an event runs smoothly even if fate or gobshites do their best to make it do differently. Rick is one of the most professional people I’ve dealt with and I would love to work with him again and look forward to another year or two of the Web Awards and to start Project X later this year. (Which turned out to be the Social Media Awards)