The 6th Annual
URSA Awards Competition

With the Bears&Buds URSA Awards Competition, we want to clarify the ground rules and explain why we believe in a ‘popular vote’ contest format.

With all competitions, the greatest variable is style of the artistry. Everyone has a style preference; what one person finds delightful, another might find appalling.

With regards to the bear artistry, with so many different techniques, creative ideas, abilities; taste then becomes the individual voter's ‘style preference’ which generally determines a winner in any competition.

Every artist has a distinctive, identifiable style and their work is usually easily recognizable. Even extremely well made pieces may not appeal to a collector. Styles such as anime, vintage, needle-felted, crocheted, classic, zany off-the-wall creations, long nosed, short muzzled, sculpted, smiling, not smiling, realistic or comical; they all have a dedicated group of collectors.

Not everyone likes or even appreciates every style or all the hard work that goes into creating them. We cannot even judge the quality from the photographs; some pieces are very well made but may not look good in the photograph while others that look good may not be well made. Often the pose, the lighting and photo composition will influence whether you, our voterr, even likes the piece or not.

Keeping an impartial perspective is Bears&Buds passion, and we realize the best judges for the URSA Awards Competition are our readers, collector and artists.

This gives the public the opportunity to become involved in the voting process. We do not want to hamper the voting process by having a hand full of jurors, with personal preferences of their own, restricting what the viewer will see in the two rounds of the competition. We do not want a selection method that prohibits the bulk of the entries from being seen.

Bears&Buds wants contestant to have the same opportunities to compete.

All bears/buds entered are shown and voted on in this year's 13 exciting and challenging categories.

Special, easy-to-use voting software allows for one vote per category, per computer.

You can vote in several categories, then return and continue voting in the other categories. Votes are audited daily for accuracy and authenticity.

Bears&Buds feels our audience of readers, collectors and members are more than capable of judging and voting their choices. People like having the ability to influence results. We see it all the time with general elections and on TV shows such as American Idol and Dancing with the Stars. The vote-power is with the people who participate.

Not everyone can be a winner but every artist should realize that even if they did not win, they received an abundant amount of additional exposure based on all the web traffic generated by all the other artists who solicit their customers, friends and family for votes.

In essence, they are WINNERS! It is hard to place a value on product visibility but what it does add up to increased traffic to their web sites and a potential increase of future sales.

As the first round of voting in year's URSA Awards Competition begins, we feel so lucky to be part of an industry which has so many talented, friendly, unique artists, readers and collectors. I can't think of another hobby which encompasses all of these qualities.

Time to vote!    Follow the URSA arrow "Let the Voting Begin!"

Bearhugs,

Valerie Rogers

Publisher/Executive Editor