We've been really excited to receive so many entries and they have all been so fantastic that we really wish you could all win!
As all of the entries flooded in, we closely looked through them and kept an open mind about everything.
It was difficult to find a picture that really stood out from the crowd as they were all so good. I decided to whittle it down and try and pick my top 10. I started to compile a list but that list grew way past 10 people as I simply didn't know which entries were my favourites.
There were some amazing pictures sent though where the dancer was clearly at a high level. A lot of these went straight to the top. A lot of these entries were from people who more than likely had their own pole. As I know from personal experience, having a pole at home really does help your pole dancing get to high levels that you may never have thought possible.
So that didn't help me narrow it down!
So… How About The Pictures?
I then focused all of my attention onto the pictures. I realised that I needed to judge each picture on the level of that person – a beginner is not going to be able to do an Ayesha and a more advanced poler is probably not going to send in a pic of a Chair Spin. Therefore, each picture needed to be judged on itself and whether that picture could hold it's own in a pole type gallery.
Some pictures were fancier than others, some had a more professional edge and some were of PoleFreaks doing what they love – poling in the studio.
100 words isn't a lot for you to try and show your inner PoleFreak, so I know it was a difficult task. We had some great entries and some heart warming stories.
I wanted to be able to give the pole to someone who I thought would actually use it and benefit from it – mine really changed my life! I wanted it to go to someone who already has a lot of time for poling in their lives and so would make the most of this Super Pole.
Time to narrow it down!
Once the competition had closed I went back through all of the entries to come up with a shortlist. I took all pictures for themselves, not comparing them with the others but simply taking them for the pictures as they came.
I read through the words and picked out the ones that meant the most to me. Some were really great stories of how pole had changed peoples lives and some were fun tales about how much of a PoleFreak people are, both in terms of places they pole as well as how often they do it.
Initially I wanted the shortlist to be 10 people… I just made it slightly too long for that! I think I still just want everyone to win.
Before we get to the winner, I just want to say a really, really big thank you to all of those who entered. You all took time and effort to enter and gave us all some really great pictures to look at and stories to read.
I also want to thank Platinum Stages who donated the pole for our competition and made this all happen.