And the award goes to …

I don't want to appear ungrateful but …

Last weekend Forest received two unsolicited emails. They came from the same source and were almost identical.

The first read:

Dear Forestonline-Team,

We have great news for you:

You have earned 38/40 in our annual website review study and thus qualify for our 'Top Website 2022' award (at least 30/40 points required).

The second read:

Dear Forestonline-Team,

We have great news for you:

You have earned 37/40 in our annual website review study and thus qualify for our 'Top Website 2022' award (at least 30/40 points required).

Did you spot the difference?

According to the first email we qualified for a "Top Website 2022" award with 38 out of a possible 40 points.

In the second we scored one point less – 37 out of 40.

According to the company behind the awards:

The score is calculated based on subjective and objective evaluation criteria that can be divided into 4 categories:

UX / Ease of Use
Trust & Security
Content & Research
Services & Communication

Our reward was a 'Top Website' badge that can be uploaded to the Forest website. In return all they’re asking us to do is add a link to their website.

As far as I can tell the company concerned builds websites and provides copy for the websites they build so I guess they’re trying to generate work.

They’re headquartered in the USA and have a further five offices – one in Central America, two in South America and two in Europe (but none in the UK).

I'm surprised we appeared on their radar because the current Forest website was designed over a decade ago and the content management system is probably older.

It does the job for us but it seems a bit random for the website to be recognised all these years later. Top Website 2012 I could understand, but 2022?

Nevertheless I'll accept any accolade with gratitude. The last time Forest was even nominated for an award was in 2016 but there was a catch.

The organisers of the annual Public Affairs Awards had heard good things about our Eat, Drink, Smoke, Vape party at the Conservative conference in Birmingham.

Instead of nominating the event for an award however they invited us to nominate it ourselves and there was a small fee to pay, although that was later waived when I politely declined the offer.

Full story here: Forest shortlisted for public affairs award and Tonight's the night.

Needless to say we didn’t win the award (for ‘Party Conference Reception of the Year') but we had a very agreeable evening at the awards dinner.

I notice that the ‘Party Conference Reception of the Year’ didn’t feature in this year’s awards which doesn’t surprise me.

Most conference receptions are terrible and don’t deserve recognition.

But that’s another story. This is what Vice wrote about the Forest event in 2016:

What the party was like: Actually really good. An upper-middle market bar packed to the gills with free booze, mini burgers, pocket ashtrays (a weird plastic wallet thing you can carry around) inscribed with the words 'Say no to outdoor smoking bans', and leaflets about how 'A once benign nanny state has become a bully state, coercing rather than educating adults to give up tobacco.'

Entertainment: It was advertised as 'Eat. Drink. Smoke. Vape.' so like all good parties there were no frills beyond the amount of inebriants you could stuff in your body.

See: We Did a Bar Crawl of the Tory Conference's Parties (Vice)

Below: The Public Affairs Awards 2016. Forest was one of five or six nominees for ‘Party Conference Reception of the Year’. We didn't win but we enjoyed the event.