Good morning!
I finally made it home from lovely Yorkshire. I'm a Leeds girl born and bred so do love to visit home a few times a year
I also handed out a ton of our flyers whilst I was up there. Visited a boot sale at one point and hit every stall holder with them. Had some great chats and was promised a lot of votes, so fingers crosed!
It would appear, after speaking to one of my colleagues, we took a nice lead into 2nd at one point, and then all of a sudden we were hundreds behind again! I received an email from a member of a forum I frequent who has been following this quite closely recently, and this is what he told me ...
"Hi willow
Since yesterday I've had a spreadsheet automatically pull the vote numbers off the website hourly and record them (don't worry it is a simple browser refresh to get the latest page, not a dodgy script) and between 10 and 11 today Hythe's count went up by 89 votes in that single hr (most hrs they get 1 or 2). Pretty much same happened on Fri eve, but my count wasn't running then so can't pinpoint.
Aside from the huge complaint of loads of votes for Stanwell not being counted then Hythe have either found a way to rig it OR they are getting 89 people into a room (after Church or something) and getting them to vote OR the site is definitely broken. Even if it's the middle case and maybe not breaking rules I think this merits an explanation, the organisers ought to be demanding one.
Do you want me to send my hourly vote count sheet to you, surely someone at the organisers HAS to start listening and responding, this makes it clear that it is still flawed? "
I have asked for his figures as we may be able to use them somewhere down the line for proof, as it were, that all is definitely not well. Buckland are so far ahead no school would ever have a chance of catching them (as we now believe it was meant to be from the start), but 2nd place has always been up for grabs, and out of the blue that looks like it has gone too (although we've not given up yet, we caught them once, we can try and do it again).
It was the sheer speed that we were overtaken in 2nd - again - that has caused the new concerns. As our emailer says, unless they co-ordinated themselves with military precision, it simply isn't possible to get that amount of votes in that space of time. Not the right way ayway!
One of our parent governers has actually been on the phone to someone at Elmsleigh about it all - she did rather give them the full force of her wrath, but we're waiting to see what happens with that, although at this late stage, I suspect nothing will happen.
We have got our story into our teeny weeny little local free paper (it is literally just delivered to a few hundred homes in this area.) I haven't seen it yet but as soon as I can I'll post up what they've reported. They were happy to report it as they are not part of the same publishing group all the other local larger newspapers are, nor are they connected with this competition in any way - the main reason, we assume, none of the other rags want to touch it!
And to my knowledge at least 20 people have emailed Elmsleigh to complain. Unfortunately every single one of them has been sent the same stock reply ...
" Thank you for your email, it is great to hear that you are continuing to support the school you are voting for in this competition.
We have rigorously tested the system to make sure it is working as it should and am assured that the website is functioning properly, but please do get in touch if you experience any further problems.
I can assure that this is a fair competition with all schools given the same opportunity to campaign for their votes and I do hope that you will continue supporting your school in the final week of the competition.
Kind regards,
Laura Shroff
Senior Account Executive
01628 625900 DL: 01628 594429 "
So they believe all is fair and well with this competition, when clearly it isn't!
I'm not sure yet how many of our voters have emailed Urban Allotments themselves, so I will be passing on your link, and emailing them myself in a minute.
After that, I'm not sure if there's anyone left to turn to for help! I was wondering if one of the dailies might want to hear it but I think if I do take it there, I'll have to speak to the Head first, being a member of staff (although one of our other supporters doing that might be the way to go there, so I'm working on that one).
Thank you. Every one of you. You have been amazing helping us throughout this competition and all of your votes are so appreciated. We aim to keep going (heading out to canvass some more at a market shortly) and see what we can do in the last 5 days of this competition.
I will update with anything new as I get it.
And again, thank you all