There are never any fees to join any competition run by The Cottage Bakers Club.

Your only expense is what your competition entry costs you to make, so this expense is 100% in your control.

That's easy!

• Find a competition you like and click the "Join Competition" button

• Review the competition page which will have all the details of the competition including the date/time/location the entry is due, rules & any specific information needed to comply with the rules.

• Click on the "Join" button and register that you are joining.

Normal people! A panel of locals who volunteer for the job, agree to follow all the competitions rules and who will provide detailed write-up for their tasted entries.

We select the judges we need for each competition the month prior to the competition date (we may need last minute backup judges if a judge cannot make it or the competition is very large)

If you or anyone you know are interested in the role, please let us know by sending us a message.

We hold a lot of competitions so the more options we have for judges, the better!

• You do not need any prior judging experience, but yay if you have it!

• Please be easy to get along with. This is an amazing experience for all involved and one bad apple...you know how that goes.

• Be between 7 and 77+ years old. We do use kid judges for kid competitions.

• You will need to be able to sit and review many food entries in a finite time period on one day, typically a Sat/Sun.

• You will need to be able to articulate in detail your experience in both a spoken and written manner.

• You agree to use the judging guidelines provided to score all entries (each competition will have their own guidelines)

• Be able to stomach the job! Seriously...It's a lot of tasting!

• Judges do not need to be available for every competition.

• Judges need to recuse themselves if they have any attachment to a specific baker.

We always have backup judges on hand if needed.

Since we don't charge an entry fee for competitions, we also don't provide any cash winnings.

What we do offer winners is exposure to as many media outlets as we can muster. We have accounts with IG, Facebook, TikTok, Pinterest, YouTube our website and more.

We use these platforms to promote the winners, the club and our competitions to locals all over Hampton Roads and beyond. Exposure is everything and social media is the fastest way to get your Name out there!

We also offer all winners a Website, if they do not already have one.

The requirements for who can enter our competitions are:

• You are a resident of Hampton Roads

• You must be between 7 and 15 years old to enter in any Kids Competition.

• Be a "Cottage Baker"

• Follow the rules of the competition you joined.