Do you think your company deserves to be in the running for a Bradford Means Business Award 2012? Here’s how to get involved.

In the first instance, we’d like you to spend some time perusing this supplement and the 11 distinct categories to make sure you or your company is entering the right one.

There are categories to suit pretty much every firm or entrepreneur. Additionally, there are some categories for individuals which we are pleased to take nominations from for people who think they fit the bill, but we are also happy for others to nominate in this category, because we know that some people like to hide their light under a bushel!

There are also two categories for the general public to nominate in – the retail/hospitality award and the Employer of the Year. We’ll be looking a little more in depth at all these separate categories from Page 5 onwards.

The awards will culminate in a glittering night on Saturday, May 26, which will be held at the Aagrah Midpoint Suite in Thornbury.

Before that, though, there’s a lot of work to be done, and it’s vital that you get your entries and nominations in to fit the following timetable.

Our partners at the Bradford Chamber of Commerce have assembled a judging panel and their first job will be to sift through the initial entries.

We are doing entries in two stages. The preferred method of entry is filling in the online coupon - follow the link from this section.

For the first stage of the competition, we want entrants to fill out the form online and include – in the space provided – a write-up of no more than 1,000 words as to why you fit the bill for that particular category. Also include as much information as you can – the guidelines in this supplement will help you.

The deadline for this first wave of entries to reach us is the end of the day on WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 29.

When we’ve got all the first-stage entries in, they will be passed to the judging panel who will assess their suitability for the next stage of the awards.

All those entrants who are deemed to be suitable for their chosen category may be contacted again and asked to fill in another form which will ask for more specific information and which will allow the judges to properly score each entrant on a level playing field. We’ll be looking to get these forms back by around FRIDAY, MARCH 30.

If some entries are good but not in the right categories, the judges may well suggest at this stage that these nominations are moved to more appropriate categories.

Then, the panel will convene and sort through all the second-stage entries, and will draw up a short-list of three finalists in each category, which will be announced nearer the date of the awards ceremony, when short-listed entrants will be contacted. Then it’s just the wait for the nail-biting final on May 26, when the winners will be announced.

We’ll be looking to focus on some of the entries in the coming weeks.