Submissions are judged on the responses to a set of Criteria for each Category. With the exception of Individual Awards, the criteria is split into two sections: Business Criteria (Section 1) and Year in Review Criteria (Section 2).
The Business Criteria assesses the capacity of the applicant to Plan and to Manage Resources and the financial performance.
The
Year in Review Criteria looks
at the actual activities of the qualifying period,
relate them to the Core Business, assess the ability
of the applicant to deal with extraordinary challenges
provided by these activities, as well as assessing
the impact on the Meetings & Events Industry
overall.
NB: It is possible for a Category to not have an Award winner if no Submission achieves a pre-determined minimum score.
An independent consultant from outside the industry will judge the Business Criteria.
A panel of two judges will judge the Year in Review Criteria.
These judges will be representatives from the industry
as well as an independent professional from an educational
facility. All judges sign a confidentiality agreement
as well as a conflict of interest form. Final
scores are not debated by individual judges, and these
judges are not informed of total scores.
Judges do not discuss the contents of a submission, nor their opinion on any submission. Score sheets are not passed from one judge to another.
A panel interview in your state may be necessary. This is to ensure that the
judging process is not totally reliant on 'score only'
winners when scores are very similar. In this
case, the submission score and the interview scores
are added and averaged to determine the state winner.
The national winner in a particular category is determined by the final highest score in that category, including the interview scores (if applicable).
All judges sign a conflict of interest and a confidentiality form. No judges are involved in submissions from their industry category.
The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Award is applied to all Award Submissions (apart from Individual awards) as a question, however the question will be judged as a stand alone and not part of the overall submission. It will be judged by an expert in CSR. If you choose NOT to answer it, this will NOT downgrade your submission. There will be 3 winners in this category based on the size of the company.
The Educational Award is applied to all Award Submissions (apart from Individual awards) as a question, however the question will be judged as a standalone and not part of the overall submission. It will be judged by an expert in this area. If you choose NOT to answer it, this will NOT downgrade your submission.
The Platinum Award is awarded for the highest overall point score gained by a national winner in its category - excluding individual, CSR and Educational question.
Submissions for Individual Awards will be initially assessed by a panel of two judges. Short-listed candidates will then interviewed by telephone to determine the category winner.
MEA reserves the right to move a submission from one category to another if the judges determine it has been placed in an incorrect category by the nominee.
