The first round was fun and several brackets came down to the final hours of voting. This round will end on Sunday night 25 March 2012.
>> The Final Round has begun, voting runs through Thursday 29 March.
The top pick in each division will move on to the finals. As always, feel free to endorse yourself or exchange some friendly taunts in the comment section.
The blogs are displayed according to their totals in the first round. Votes don’t accumulate, but it’s nice to see who had the early advantage.
Midwest Regional
[polldaddy poll=6052927]
West Regional
East Regional
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South Regional
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Big Surprises?
So far the we’ll have to go with Jason Martin as the ultimate “Cinderella” of this tournament. His blog was among the last four in but came out with a solid performance in the West division. Not far behind was Dustin Nickerson who began as a 13th seed. Don’t look for Sam “Spike Lee” Luce to have call off the hounds.
Another upset was the early exit of Wayne Stocks who had two different blogs advance to the Sweat 16 last year. Time for Mr. Ohio to build his email newsletter back to it’s former glory.
Two other underdogs pulled together a win. Cory Center finally realized this isn’t a hockey playoff and West Coast CM came out of hibernation just in time to pull the upset.
The most dominant performance so far came from Jim Wideman. He almost broke the century mark and might just give his “young guns” a lesson in old school blogging.
Defense? Yea, we’ve got that too. The Kidologist held off several tough challengers and came out with a decent margin of victory despite a low scoring contest.
Feel free to add your impressions and prize suggestions in the comment box below. Right now the leading suggestion is a bobble head in my image. This may be a little too Catholic for my taste, but I’m trying to keep an open mind.
Rats! I missed the first few rounds and couldn’t spread the word. How did I miss it? :(
The final round has started.
http://ministry-to-children.com/kids-ministry-bm-2012-final/
Hotly contested West Regional for sure.
Clearly a bloated bracket. Too bad only one will advance.
The consolation for the losers, every vote will give you a boost in the Top 100 list we’re producing near the end of Summer. In the past year’s it was just a flat bonus for making the final 16. This year every vote will have more of an impact, not to mention the seeding for next year’s tourney.
http://ministry-to-children.com/top-blogs/
I was just noticing that if any one of us in the West would be in South that we’d be winning big.
I like a good competition, this is fun. Though admittedly, I’d rather be winning by a large margin :-)
So, does the winning blog get a Tony Kummer bobble head?
Looks like my bench wasn’t deep enough. Looks like Jason continues on as Cinderella to the big dance. Congratulations, and I enjoyed the friendly contest.
I tip my hat to you sir.
I’m aware of Jim and his consistency and investment in “young guns.” Hey, he got the Legacy award at INCM this year! Its so tough when you have friends up against each other and they both have great blogs! What to do? Flip a coin! LOL
I knew I shouldn’t have given up on shameless self-promotion. :) Wish I had more time to stump for votes last week, but alas it wasn’t meant to be. I love the blog madness tournament, but I’ll go ahead and take time with my family with year instead. I usually make is to at the least the Sweet 16 there. :) Great blogs left – every single one of them!
I’m pulling for Jenny Funderburke or Jim Wideman this year. Jenny has one the best and most underheralded kidmin blogs out there. On the other hand, it just doesn’t seem right that Jim hasn’t won this thing yet.
Good luck to all! Happy blogging.
Wayne- that was one of the nicest things ever. Thank you friend. :). Glad I can follow the madness a little from Belize.
I thought we were friends. :(
Thanks Wayne, you are too kind …I hate to go against my infusers. I love those folks like my kids, Also several other adopted young guns in the sweet 16. I too think Jenny has one of the best blogs around, she is a blessing to me and a God send. Jenny-Been praying for your trip and little girl today
I love you Jim, but I help write for Cory Center so I’m hoping we pull off an upset and knock you outta this round.
:)
Well, I suppose it may be time to concede the fight….we gave brother Jim a rund for his money and Cory Center was within 1 vote earlier today…he’s got a bigger audience to pull from though and he’s now 60 some votes ahead with only a little while to go.
Don’t forget Jenny has shared some of her best ideas here on our blog too. http://ministry-to-children.com/author/jenny/
Wow, I honestly can’t believe I made it to the second round. We all know last year I got lucky (thanks to some big help from some friends). I have to admit, it’d be fun to make it to the final four again, but I think Karl has a vendetta against me and I’m not sure it’s going to happen. I’d be happy to see anyone in my division move up. They are each great bloggers and ones that I regularly follow and I am encouraged by. All that said, VOTE FOR SMALL TOWN KIDMIN!
Tony – you’re right, this is no hockey playoff. The Cory Center team doesn’t even play hockey. But we’re proud to have made it to the 2nd round for the first time!
Honored to have even been included in the first round and. Was surprised to see myself getting as many votes as I did. Thanks Tony.
I agree, it is an honor to make it out of the first round – thank you everyone who voted for About the Children’s Department and thank you Tony for providing this opportunity for everyone to find out about kidmin blogs! About the Children’s Department has been around for just a little over a year; thank you everyone who reads it! :^)
Kidology.org may have a big subscriber list, closer to 30,000 – but I’m not tapping it for votes, I’m letting my blog stand on it’s own. (It has no newsletter list… hmmmm, that gives me an idea thought… LOL) While I blog about kidmin, it’s also to let friends and family see the “personal” side of me, so it’s not just kidmin. Though I learned the hard way to avoid politics awhile ago, Christians don’t seem to be able to handle politics, so I have a ‘top secret’ political blog and twitter identity that only a few have figured out. If you crack it and ask me, I’ll admit it’s me, but I won’t tell you what it is, you have to follow the clues… and they are there.
I’ve been bloggin’ since there was no blog software or sites, (pre-Blogger and pre-Wordpress, so I LOVE seeing all these blogs and am blown away by 100+ kidmin blogs today! What a blessing to the Kidmin Kingdom!
Thanks Tony for all your hard work on this each year!
You’d almost think my timing was planned :)
Last year’s prize seems to have set the bar pretty high – whatever you end up deciding, I’m pretty sure it’ll be great.
In all seriousness, it’s an honor just to make it out of round 1. My region is a little stacked (Karl’s other site, Kidology.org, has over 20,000 subscribers, Jared won last year’s tourney & Gina is a sought after keynote speaker on the national conference circuit), but I’m proud to be 1 of 2 west coast blogs still in the race – Justyn, if the big guns take me out, I wish you luck!)
Make that 3 West Coast Bloggers Anthony. 4 months ago from Seattle, now presently residing in San Diego. ;)
Hello, San Diego!
Totally missed my radar, Dustin.
That gives me another person to cheer for :)
-Ap
Dear Anthony,
Being part of the KidMin360 team, it’s probably best that you know that we are on the West Coast. And it also gives you another blog to cheer for. ;0)
Thank you…from SAN DIEGO.
Greg
So… I wasn’t paying attention when I said there were 2 of us on the West Coast. There are more of us. Dustin and Greg included.
So… there you go. You know what would make this easier? If, next year, regions were actually based on where you were located. Just a thought.
-Ap
Too funny! Ha!
I agree…just like giving you a hard time. ;0)
Hola! :)
On the flip side, we could get all four west coasters in the final four…
If there is a Brother Jim Bobblehead involved in the prize package, I cannot guarantee that I won’t lie, cheat, and steal to win this thing at all costs.
I can give the winner one of my bobbleheads thanks again for doing this and including me
A bro. Jim bobblehead? This just got real.