Well, it’s finally here! A site where you can view (and also up-load) images of qualified candidates for nomination to the Club’s annual Chip of the Year, Token of the Year and Silver Strike of the Year Awards Competitions for 2001. Also known as COTY, TOTY and SSOTY, it is hoped that every member (even Associates) take advantage of their membership and take a few minutes to nominate a qualified candidate for finalist consideration.

The COTY/TOTY/SSOTY pages are intended to serve as a centralized location where we can all go take a look, and then NOMINATE! (via snail-mail). We emphasize the act of ‘nomination’ because you MUST nominate a qualified candidate (for any of the three competitions) in order to become a judge, and only judges can vote on the finalist to determine a winner.

This year’s competitions will be different than previous competitions in two ways. First off, the new category of Silver Strikes (awarded for the first time last year by the Club’s Silver Striker Chapter) in now expanded out to all Club members and becomes part of the previous COTY/TOTY activity as the COTY/TOTY/SSOTY Awards Competition. Secondly, each category (COTY, TOTY and SSOTY) will now have 2 runner-ups and it has been decided that each place position will be designated as Gold (3rd place), Platinum (2nd place) and Diamond (1st place).

To get to the site, just ‘click’ the link below and off you will go. Please bear with us as we refine the site, for which I would like to thank my daughter and her husband for developing on such short notice. Angela, Terry, thank you.

The site is very straight forward. Images appear first. For closer examination, just ‘click’ each image. At the bottom there is an up-load feature, very much like the ChipBoard. ‘Click’ browse, navigate to your image, ‘select it, ‘click’ open, and ‘click "up-load". Depending on system speed and connection speed, your image will automatically be pasted into the Gallery page and available for everyone else to view. We recognize that the task of pre-processing your images (there is a preferred naming convention to avoid duplicate names) may be troublesome, so please feel free to e:mail your qualified candidate scans to me and I will up-load them to the site. (Qualified candidates are chips, tokens and Silver Strikes issued during the calendar year 2001, additional details are contained at the Club’s official site (www.ccgtcc.com), or soon will be, and in the next quarterly publication of the Club’s magazine.

Lastly, just as in previous years, Archie Black continues as the competition’s Chairman, but this year he has graciously allowed me to assist him. For questions regarding the sites, please contact me. For questions regarding the competition, as before, please contact Archie.

Thank you. Please post images, NOMINATE, vote, and enjoy the images (posted without advertising). I hope to see everyone at the Awards Ceremony (the Convention Banquet), which is just around the corner!

Jim Follis