Winner of the 2nd Torkona Award is..

After reading numerous parent bloggers, the winner of the 2nd ever Torkona Award has been chosen.

This time, the award is to highlight blogger's first born birth stories.

Having recently become a parent myself, I found it a very appropriate theme.

You can read my own first born birth story: Finally, I am a dad. Leave me a comment if you think I should have won my own award :-)

The requirements of this blogger award to summarise were:

Your first born birth story with a total score of out 31 based on four different criteria.

• a possible ten points for creativity
• a possible ten points for how hilarious you are
• a possible ten points for a heart warming story
• one brownie point (for posting award image link)

And the winner is..


*insert drum roll here*

mum in search

~**Congratulations!!**~

She has fit every category of creativity, humour and heart warming story with her post Torkona wants to read my first born birth story. And yes, I did.


Visit her post and perhaps follow her blog.  She's quite funny and a great blogger as well.  Top marks go for having priorities of watching such quality TV programming like 'So You Think You Can Dance' instead of worrying too much about labour pains. Too bad you missed the end of the show!  Great creativity with the photo collage, which was unique of all the entries.

Good idea going for the brownie point also, it got you over the line!  Something I would recommend for future torky awards!

So well done mum in search. Here's is the other part of your prize, my second ever trophy.

Ten runners up are as follows, each with links to their birth stories for everyone to read.

A field of dreams	My if journey
Tara	Birth story bandwagon
Taryn	First born story
lifeasmummymax	Our 1st born Elaina
Tracy	Arrival of Cassidy
Crap Mamma	From birth plans to toilet plungers
Reservoir Dad	Enter the Torkona Award
parentwin	First story of my first borns
Kellie	Sienna Jade
Madmother	God of Obstetrics

Thank you to all that entered.  I enjoyed finding a few new blogs as well as reading all your birth stories.

Don't forget to follow/subscribe for the next installment of The Torkona Award.  It is getting bigger and bigger, so who knows what can be next!

- tork

The Torkona Award II - Closed

Entries for the Torkona Award II Your First Born Birth Story is now closed.

All entries have been reviewed and a winner will be announced soon.

Winner announced as soon as I possibly can, as I currently have other important matter to attend to.

Hmm, whatever could they be?  :-)

- tork

The Torkona Award II - Extension

Okay, rush rush.. let me type away as fast as I can!


Due to unforseen circumstances (ie. baby, which actually is totally forseen) I am EXTENDING the deadline for The Torkona Award II, Your First Born Birth Story.


New deadline to submit your entry is now prior to 1st of May 2011.



Just so much easier for me to extend the deadline at this point in time.



I've already received some great entries, but there is still a chance for others to have a crack.


Hope you use this extension wisely and submit your post for this blog award.

The Torkona Award II, Your First Born Birth Story.

Good luck!


Now, I'm off to get some serious sleep before our firstborn arrives!!! :-)  EEEEK!!


- tork

The Torkona Award II - Your First Born Birth Story

THIS AWARD IS NOW CLOSED. CLICK THIS BLOGGERS AWARD LINK TO FIND THE LATEST INFO FOR THE NEXT AWARD.

I've got some exciting news.

The Torkona Award, is back!

The inaugural Torkona award went to Romina. Her gratitude was shown via her Martyr-hood blog.

When I bestoyed this honour on her as the first ever recipient, her followers numbered about 50 people.

As of this post, a month later, she now holds 528 followers.

Goes to show how awesome for your followship my little award can be (of course, her fantastic blogging has something to do with it).

But it's the first stepping stone towards great exposure! So I would love as many people as possible to have a go this time around again.

Here's how the 2nd Torkona award is going to work.


1. Tell us your story about your first born child

Anyone is eligible from any part of the globe.  So long as you are:

• a mum
• a dad
• an expecting mum
• an expecting dad

Even though you may have not given birth just yet, it would still be lovely to read your story so far.

I want to hear things such as how the pregnancy is or was, your fears, your excitement, your struggles, your joy.  Basically anything in the time frame of the pregnancy.

I can't wait to read them.


2. What is the prize?

The person I judge to have the best story receives a post on my blog dedicated to your story/blog.  Refer to my last Torkona Award to see an example.

As mentioned above, this can give you great exposure for your blog.  Ooh, you'll get a groovy .gif image trophy too!

Ten runners up will receive a link back to their blog as a thank you for having a crack at it.


3. How you are scored

This time, for each story, I give a total score of out 31 based on four different criteria.

• a possible ten points for creativity
• a possible ten points for how hilarious you are
• a possible ten points for a heart warming story
• one brownie point

"Ok, one brownie point huh? What's that? What's the catch?" I hear you say

No catch, you don't have to do it if you dont want to.

But, if you do want that extra point, what you need to do is copy and paste the code in the text box below into the HTML section of your post:



That's why :-)
6. What happened to point 4?

Aren't I just hilarious *sigh*

7. Final Requirement and Deadline

I will need to know that you have completed your post so I can judge it.

So, when you have finished, please leave a comment against this post of the URL to your story.

Alternatively, you can contact me of your link (and any questions) via tork.southaust@gmail.com

All entries must be in on or prior to the 1st of May, 2011

All that is left to say is, I encourage as many people as possible to give this a go.

I will love to hear everyone's stories, as well as I am certain your followers will as well.  Not only for them to reminisce, but for yourself as well.

Good luck.  And even if you don't win, I hope that it will at least bring back some happy memories! :-)

- tork

<a href="http://torkona.blogspot.com/2011/03/torkona-award-ii-your-first-born-birth.html"><img src="http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee492/torkona/tork0411.gif" /></a>

An image will appear on your post just like this below as a link back to this award.






Pretty cool huh?  It's all about exposure and I'd like to get as many stories as possible, so if you want that extra point and you aren't scared about some competition, you can consider it.

5. Why am I doing this?

If you already follow my blog, you may already know that my wife and I are expecting our first child any day now.  I can't wait to tell everyone our story.

So, I was thinking, 'wouldn't it be great to hear about others first born stories as well?' 

The Torkona Award.. on hold

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Hello followers..

Just wanted to let you know that the Inaugural Torkona award was such a success, I've been receiving questions of when the next one is.

Unfortunately, I cannot give you a precise time when this will be.  You will have to simply follow my blog and keep a keen eye when it is announced.

Today would have been the day the next award were to have been announced, but because of the limited time I currently have lately with the pending birth my first born, I hope that you understand my time is limited.

I want to put a lot of time and effort into each submission for the award.  Hopefully you'll understand I don't have too much time at the moment.

But don't you worry, it'll be a cracker when it comes back :-)

Here is the inaugural winner of the Torkona award and what they received.

Be on the watch for my latest baby news as well.  I will try to update when I can! You can find my last news here of why baby is a bit small

Anyway, subscribe and I promise you will see its return, in whatever form it may be!

- tork

Winner of the Inaugural Torkona Award is..

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After sifting through 18 entries of best Aussie Mummy bloggers for January 2011

Scoring each blog out of 30

• 10 possible points for writing ability
• 10 possible points for heart warming stories
• 10 possible points for a fair dinkum laugh

The winner of the Inaugural Torkona Award is

*insert drum roll here*

Romina @ Martyr-hood!!

Congratulations Romina.  Here's why she is my deserved winner for January 2011.

I am bit surprised I've actually enjoyed her blog.  I tend to find myself put a-back by writings full of swear words, but the posts for January were so well written and displayed the emotions she has been feeling very well. It was a very interesting read.  I don't think I could imagine it without all the swearing!

I especially enjoyed I think you're all fucked in the head. The title is definitely a stand out. I didn't know what to think after reading just the title. But, it is witty, well structured, heart warming and hilarious. It covers all my criteria exceptionally. It also is likely to be defining for most Aussie mums out there, but I'll let the mums be the judge of that!

The other posts are also very good for January, but that one stood out the most. So to Romina at Martyr-hood, Congratulations! Please accept this trophy as your prize.

Thank you to all that entered. Better luck next time.  Make sure you follow me via RSS subscriber, Twitter or Facebook to find out when my next award is up for grabs.

The following are 10 runners-up that only just missed out on the choccies.

Mumstrosity	http://www.mumstrosity.com/
Madmother	http://meanderingmadmother.blogspot.com/
Clairey	Claireyhewitt.blogspot.com
Veronica	http://somedaywewillsleep.com/
Taryn	http://www.tarynrucci.blogspot.com/
Parental Parody	http://parentalparody.blogspot.com/
Tat	http://muminsearch.com/
Toushka	http://www.toushkalee.com/
Glowless	http://www.wheresmyglow.com/
Farmer's Wifey	http://www.farmerswifey.com/
Dear Baby G	http://www.dearbabyg.com/

- tork

Tork's Aussie Mummy Blogger Award - January 2011

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I am a bit excited to introduce to you, the first award in a long series of awards for bloggers: The Torkona Award

Run and judged by myself, a series of awards by me, a (soon to be) Dad Blogger, Gamer Blogger, Humor Blogger, etc etc.

Awarded randomly throughout the year, this award will hopefully bring great prestige to those that win, especially for the person winning this one, being the very first Tork award ever.

The award will go to the best Australian Mummy Blogger in January 2011.

What are the prizes?

• one mummy will win an entire post dedicated to their blog, posted here, with reasons why it is awesome and the winner
• with my blog reaching over 5000 views a month, the person will receive a great amount of awareness and traffic for their blog and the opportunity of plenty more followers
• a really cool 'trophy' to add to their blog
• 10 runners-up will receive a link from my blog to theirs

How is it being judged?

• I am judging each blog received prior to 21st February 2011. Winner will be announced shortly after this date
• blogs are judged based on posts in January 2011 only
• high praise is given for well written blogs
• extra marks for the heart warming stories
• brownie points given for a good, fair dinkum laugh
• sorry, you have to be an Australian Mum for the inaugural award

 Why am I doing this?

• Because Aussie mums are awesome
• I want to reward talent where talent is due
• I want to reward mummy bloggers for spending part of their days blogging and not spending hours upon hours on Farmville :-)
• Why not?

So if you would like to nominate a blog, or vote for your own blog for the inaugural Torkona Award, please leave the link as a comment below.  Please don't just leave a comment to nominate your blog or someone elses without adding the link as well, otherwise how can I check it out? Any more questions or discussions, please also leave below.

If you want to spread the word of this award, share it with the social media links at top of this post, or add this following code somewhere on your blog:

<a href="http://torkona.blogspot.com/2011/01/torks-aussie-mummy-blogger-award.html"><img border="0" src="http://i1230.photobucket.com/albums/ee492/torkona/tork0211.gif" /></a>

Good luck, and may the blogs be with you!


- tork