It’s less than 6 weeks until Federal Conference in Glasgow. And late on the Saturday night of Conference, as always, Liberal Democrat Voice will be holding its annual awards. This is the 8th such ceremony, and this year, we’re making a few changes.  As usual, they’ll be awarded in a budget lavish ceremony in Castle 2 at the Crowne Plaza between 10 and 11:30 pm. The dress code is “imaginative.”

There will be some Very Important Guests. Some we will keep as surprises, but we can tell you that Kirsty Williams, leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats will be presenting an award.

Click on the following links to see last year’s shortlist and the Winners.

This year’s awards are as follows:

• Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year
• Liberal Democrat Blog-post of the year
• Liberal Democrat Tweeter/Facebooker of the Year
• Best use of social media by an elected representative (Tim Garden award)
• Best online campaign run by a Liberal Democrat

We are asking for nominations for the shortlists for these awards. They will then be judged by our esteemed panel of judges. Liberal Democrat Voice and any official blogs run by the party aren’t eligible either.

We also seek nominations for the following new awards. The shortlists will then be put to a vote of our forum of party members. That’s right. This year, we are giving our readers who are members of the party the chance to choose the majority of our winners.

• Lib Dem Councillor of the Year
• The Lib Dems’ Favourite Tory MP award
• The Lib Dems’ Favourite Labour MP award
• Best online campaign of the year (non Lib Dem)
• Best photograph of a Liberal Democrat Parliamentarian

For these we will need nominations plus a very brief – and I’m talking no more than a sentence – reason why. We will then compile the shortlists from those and poll to our members’ forum.

You’ve got until 23rd August to nominate your favourites, but the sooner the better (and you can send more than one set if you’d like). Please don’t feel the need to round up hundreds of people to nominate your blog as the number of nominations aren’t taken into account.

Send in your nominations by email to [email protected] and remember to state which award category you’re nominating for, in each case.

The shortlists will then be put to a vote of our forum of party members. That’s right. This year, we are giving our readers who are members of the party the chance to choose the majority of our winners.

And there’s even more. There are other awards that you will have the chance to vote for:

• Lib Dem Minister of the Year
• Lib Dem MP of the Year
• Lib Dem parliamentarian (non-minister) of the Year (open to MSPs, MEPs, Peers, AMs GLAMs

All will be eligible for these categories.

And there’s even more than that…

• Best Political Commentator (print/online) of the Year
• Best Political Broadcaster (TV/radio) of the Year

These awards will be chosen form a shortlist based on the answers in our recent survey. Again, all members in our members’ forum will have the chance to vote.

So there you have it. This year, we are giving our readers who are members of the party the chance to choose the majority of our winners. I hope you all get involved and enjoy the nominating and voting processes. In the olden days, people would do their own blog posts saying who they were nominating and why. Feel free to share the news of these awards far and wide.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings