Cape Town to honour its best
2008-07-14 10:17
Cape Town - What would Cape Town be, without Capetonians? People make a city, and the time has come to give ordinary Capetonians the appreciation they deserve.
To honour those who dedicate their talents to making Cape Town great, Good Hope FM has launched a unique and dynamic initiative: The Good Hope FM Best of Cape Town Awards.
"The motivation for the awards," said Meegan Kieffer, marketing manager of Good Hope FM, "is that together with Cape Town Tourism and other stakeholders, we want to reward those who truly make our city a better place to live."
"With 2010 around the corner, we want to promote service excellence and encourage everyone to go the extra mile.
"Anybody who sells, competes, entertains, accommodates, feeds, serves, shelters, teaches or saves lives in Cape Town is eligible. Anybody can vote, and anyone could be a potential winner," she said.
According to the awards director Alison Mulhall this is a "competition with a significant difference".
"The Awards have been established to recognise, reward and applaud Capetonians who have achieved excellence to such a point that the public have decided that they are the best in their field.
Public votes
Finalists will be chosen purely on the basis of the number of nominations they receive from the public.
"Simply put, the more nominations put forward by the public for a candidate, the better their chance of becoming a finalist," Mulhall explained.
The public only needs to provide the name of their nominee and they do not need to justify or explain why they are being nominated.
However, she added, the public should consider some key factors when making their nominations as these will form the underlying criteria for successful nomination:
do they embrace a "green" policy on water, energy and water?
do they contribute to empowerment by mentoring others or transferring their skills?
are they law-abiding?
do they excel in service delivery?
do they have an outstanding product offering?
do they show creativity and innovation?
is Cape Town their base?
are they currently active in their field of expertise?
The five nominees who receive the most nominations in each category will be declared finalists.
"Due diligence will be done on the five finalists by a committee of experts in their respective fields and will be verified by Grant Thornton.
"Those that most closely comply with all the above criteria will be declared finalists and their names put out to public vote. The winner will be whichever finalist receives the most votes from the public," she explained.
The Best of Cape Town Awards categories are as follows:
Cape Town Shopping, which has two sub-categories including:
Best Shopping Centre
Best Retail Outlet
Cape Town Achievers, which has four sub-categories including:
Best Sports Person
Best Sports Team
Best Performing Artist
Best Performing Group
Cape Town Hospitality, which has four sub-categories including:
Best Attraction / Event
Best Accommodation
Best Restaurant
Best Nightspot
Creative Cape Town, which has two sub-categories including:
Best Building (completed by January 2006)
Best "Made in Cape Town" product or service (established between 2004 and 2006)
Cape Town Heroes, which has three sub-categories including:
Best Emergency Hero (fire, police, traffic and medical)
Best Education Hero (teachers, lecturers, head principals)
Best Community Hero (good Samaritan, NGO/CBO initiatives)
Finalists will be announced on 28 August and voting will close on 8 September.
The winners will be announced at a red-carpet event to be held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on 13 September and members of the public will be able to purchase tickets to watch their favourite finalist announced as the winner.
Official nomination forms can be collected from Cape Town Tourism Visitor Centres or the SABC Office in Beach Road Sea Point or you can nominate online at www.goodhopefm.co.za.