AMHERST – Cue the drum roll: The 2019 Best of Souhegan Valley Region voting begins now.

The annual awards competition in which area businesses and service professionals are recognized and honored launched Aug. 1 for readers, who now may log on to the official Survey Monkey site to cast their votes in nearly 140 categories this year.

Hosted in partnership by the Souhegan Valley Chamber of Commerce and The Cabinet as well as its fellow weekly journals that publish in Bedford, Hollis-Brookline and Merrimack, Best of the Souhegan Valley is highly anticipated each year, said Publisher Heather Goodwin Henline.

“We are very excited to once again offer this awards program in partnership with the Chamber. We know how seriously our local businesses and their owners and staff take these awards, and we always have excellent participation from readers that culminate in thousands upon thousands of votes,” Goodwin Henline said.

“Readers love having a way to recognize the places where they eat, shop, get medical care and more. The survey is fun and interactive, and it gives community members a way to recognize really good service and the quality establishments and people we are blessed to have locally,” she continued.

The link to vote is: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BOS2019.

It is accessible via The Cabinet’s website, www.cabinet.com. It also will be distributed via the Chamber, to its membership and those who receive the organization’s email alerts, said Wendy Hunt, the Chamber’s executive director.

In addition to being able to vote online, print ballots will be distributed twice in the Cabinet and each of the journals on the following schedule:

• Cabinet – Aug. 15 and 22

• Bedford, Hollis-Brookline and Merrimack Journals – Aug. 16 and 23

Only original copies of the ballots will be accepted.

“I think they (businesses and honorees) really watch and gauge what’s going to happen here,” Hunt said previously. “Especially, the ones who have been in it before. They don’t want to miss it. And so we really want to encourage the new businesses to say, ‘Hey, did you realize there’s this contest going on.’

We tell them to look online, to look at our website, to really make sure people know about it. Social media plays a big role,” Hunt noted in terms of driving the vote.

In order to be eligible to win a Best of Souhegan award, businesses or individual representatives must meet one of the following criteria:

1. Must be a business located within the 11 towns of the Souhegan Valley: Amherst, Brookline, Greenville, Hollis, Lyndeborough, Mason, Milford, Mont Vernon, New Ipswich, Temple, and Wilton; 

2. Be a member of the Souhegan Valley Chamber of Commerce;

3. Or be located in the towns covered by the Bedford Journal, Merrimack Journal, Hollis-Brookline Journal or Milford Cabinet publications.

“The Best of Souhegan truly shows off what this area has to offer in terms of our vibrant business community,” Goodwin Henline said. “We are very fortunate to have so many strong, growing and thriving firms, both large and small, in the Souhegan Valley.”

This year’s awards banquet is set for 5:30 to 8 p.m. Sept. 25 at Alpine Grove Banquet Center, 19 S. Depot Road, Hollis NH 03049. Tickets, being sold through the Chamber, are $40 per person and include a buffet dinner, which will feature a cash bar. For more information about the dinner, log on to http://www.souhegan.net/events/details/best-of-souhegan-valley-region-awards-4189.

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Best of Souhegan Valley Region

Survey Link

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BOS2019

Instructions

Online, vote for your favorite business in each category by typing the business name and location in the line next to the category. For print ballots, write in your answers on the blank provided.

Please choose only one business per category.

Rules

• The deadline to vote online is 5 p.m. on Aug. 26, 2019. Print ballots must be received by 5 p.m. Aug. 28.

• You must be at least 18 years of age to enter.

• Each winner gives the Cabinet Press and the Souhegan Valley Chamber of Commerce permission to publish his or her name, town or likeness.

• Entries become the property of The Cabinet Press and the Souhegan Valley Chamber of Commerce.

• At least 20 choices must be written in for ballot to be counted.

• Only one ballot per person will be counted.