Hoping for some Veg Fan help!

[Lesley Jay]

Thanks everyone for voting! Please remember that you can vote every day!

Julian you are quite right, the voting system is extremely, poorly organised.

[Shetty]

I have been voting everyday for you.
Have just been updating my computer with some friends and discovered that once you voted and then cleared the browsing history you can revisit the page and vote again and again ...
Just got yourself 5 extra votes from my friemds here.
As each of us has a different email address, that should be okay

[Lesley Jay]

Thanks Shetty for voting every day!

[Willow10]

Thank you all so much for your continued (and new!) support

Last night I emailed back the website designers and told them the answers, which were clearly stock answers, were not good enough, and asked, in detail, more specific questions. I haven't heard anything so far! I did inform them that as of tomorrow at 2.10pm our school breaks for Easter and would appreciate a reply by then so I can inform parents of the situation. Maybe I'll get a reply in time?!

Another of our staff members today told me she had a friend at British Airways who she had recruited, and their staff have all tried to vote for us as of today (they've been a little 'strike' busy before now) - they were *all* greeted by the message 'Thank you, but you have already voted within the last 24 hours!'

????

They are, shall we say, 'not happy'. To the point where they have made an official complaint to the organisers, 'Elmsleigh'. I directed them there. Decided I should give the website designers at least until 2.10 pm tomorrow to reply to my questions regarding our voters inability to vote.

If this doesn't happen, I am more than willing to post the website organisers name, contact number and email addresses to anyone that wants it. Maybe a direct complaint to them will yield some results that we all seem unable to get by any other means.

Someone on a website I frequent asked me today 'Is there a prize for 2nd place?' I have answered 'Yes. And we intend to win it. That prize is the knowledge that we should have won, but still got 2nd, regardless of this farce, and by sheer hard work and a lot of wonderful supporters'

Thank you all so much! I will keep you up to date with any news or developments.

[Lesley Jay]

Originally Posted by DavidT

Willow, start using the local media.

Willow, I must agree with David especially after reading the latest instalment from the local media.

Buckland leading the way in Get Schools Growing competition - Communities - Egham

This is inferring that both Stanwell and Hythe Schools were being 'gifted' 800 votes an hour by 'fake votes'. The 800 figure is ridiculous!

You must post a comment to this on the Stains News site to put the record straight and also contact Urban Allotments.

I hope Urban Allotments award the prize to at least the top three schools, better still all of the schools!

[Willow10]

I was sent that link today. It certainly does paint Buckland in a glowing light, when everyone knows that whatever the organisers objected to, Buckland did it too, but for some reason appear to have been left with all their same IP/Email address votes.

BA told us today they have officially emailed their complaints to both Elmsleigh and the local newspaper, but I'm not sure if anything will come of that. As stated in the article you have linked to, the newspaper is part of this competition, so it presumably wouldn't be in their best interests to report on dodgy practises. Other local papers in the Spelthorne area are all part of the same group too, Trinity South, so if one paper won't touch it, the others probably won't either.

But we are far from just letting this drop!

And we've made up some ground, only 81 votes between us and 2nd place

I haven't had any reply to my questions from the website designer, nor do I expect to now. No-one seems to want to take responsibility for this shambles, so we will just continue to fight our way to 2nd, with help from all our supporters.

Thank you all for continuing to vote, we have 11 days left!

I am going to visit my folks tomorrow in the North but will be checking on all this frequently throughout the days. And at the first sign of any further developments, I'll update you all straight away.

I also won't be sitting quietly up there - lots and lots of potential voters in the wilds of Yorkshire and I'll be hitting them all with my flyers

[andrew]

Originally Posted by Willow10

Hi everyone!

Hope it's okay to post this here. You have a fantastic website here – it’s clear you all love growing your own vegetables. We’d like the opportunity to teach school children the importance, and fun, of growing their own, and we’d like your help to do it.

Our local Primary school has been entered into a competition along with 5 other schools in the area. This is a wonderful opportunity to win a fantastic prize!

“Elmsleigh is set to inspire younger people and aims to 'Get Schools Growing'! The battle is on for one local school to win a raised bed allotment and seeds, donated by Urban Allotments, plus gardening equipment and expert advice after the installation from Vermeulens Garden Centre.”

The rules are simple – the school with the most votes at the end of the competition WINS!

Unfortunately we started the competition a week later than the other schools. We have made up a phenomenal amount of ground over the last week but are still falling behind.

WE NEED YOUR HELP!

All we are asking is a few minutes of your time each day to register your vote on the internet – and to pass on this information to as many people as you can – family, friends, co-workers, anyone who might be able to help our children win this fabulous prize.

We have been campaigning constantly via word of mouth and on the internet. We believe we could have a good chance of winning this competition – BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP!

Just go to : Get Schools Growing and register your vote for ‘Stanwell Fields School.’

The competition closes at Midnight on April 11th and you can vote each day so remember to pass that on and come back and vote again and again!

Thank you all for your time, and such a warm welcome to your forums!

A fantastic idea,we are doing some thing similar in wakefield.On our local alotment site we have donated an area for the infant school and is under way developing the site with volanteers and various donations from local business and the public alike.good luck. andy

[Lesley Jay]

Originally Posted by andrew

A fantastic idea,we are doing some thing similar in wakefield.On our local alotment site we have donated an area for the infant school and is under way developing the site with volanteers and various donations from local business and the public alike.good luck. andy

That's a great opportunity for the kids to discover how fabulous it is to grow and eat their own grown veggies!

Stanwell Fields School has made it into second place but it is very close between Stanwell Fields and Hythe Primary - so PLEASE, PLEASE vote for Stanwell Fields!!

[DavidT]

Just voted again, is it my imagination or has Stanwell lost MORE votes? I could have swore they had almost 4,700 votes last night.

[Lesley Jay]

I also thought that Stanwell Fields had alot more votes. They had pulled ahead of Hythe Primary and it does seem strange that Hythe would have gained so many more votes when both schools were virtually neck and neck.

I've also voted again but my votes don't seem to count!

[DavidT]

Just tried voting again and had the " you`ve voted in the last 24 hrs " message, underneath it said " thank you for your vote, please vote again tomorrow ".Needless to say, my vote was counted, will try again later. There is something seriously wrong with this competion.

[Lesley Jay]

Originally Posted by DavidT

Just tried voting again and had the " you`ve voted in the last 24 hrs " message, underneath it said " thank you for your vote, please vote again tomorrow ".Needless to say, my vote was counted, will try again later. There is something seriously wrong with this competion.

There IS something seriously wrong with the voting - why on earth couldn't the kids (accompanied of course) just collect signatures on a voting sheet???

[DavidT]

I agree, Lesley. And the lack of response from Elmsleigh and the local rag make them look complicent.

[Lesley Jay]

I bet Urban Allotments who are donating the prize don't know what is going on.

[DavidT]

Originally Posted by Lesley Jay

I bet Urban Allotments who are donating the prize don't know what is going on.

So, how do we get in touch with them?

[Lesley Jay]

Here you go David - fingers crossed!!

http://www.urban-allotments.co.uk/Co...t/default.html

[DavidT]

I`ve just emailed them. Told them I thought they were unaware of what was happening, and asked for their views.

[Lesley Jay]

Brilliant!!

[Willow10]

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

[DavidT]

Willow, if you are goingt to email Urban Alloments, I will give you3 guesses as to whom you will get a reply from.