A Winner, Some Changes, and a New Mission!

Hello all!
Friday is usually my day to link up with my good pal MiMi for her meme, but the only F-Bomb I could think to share today, is I'm so FLIPPIN excited to announce the next Symfully Sweet candy! 
But first, a little bit of business...
If I can direct your attention to the top right sidebar, you will see that the people have spoken.  The winner of the Tootsie Roll challenge is EMMY!  Congratulations!  So, what does she win?  I have no idea.  I'm still working on it, as my cold seems to have hindered my mental capabilities.  But, it will be good.  Not quite as good as the grand prize will be, but it will make entering worth it, I'm sure. 
So, Emmy:  I need your address.  I can't guarantee it will go out in the next few days, or even within a week, but you WILL receive a prize sometime during October. 
Thanks to all who entered!
Now on to some changes...
It became clear to me during the voting process that my system was flawed, and for that, I owe you all an apology.  My purpose behind putting it to an open vote, was to increase traffic to my blog, and by extension direct new participants to my game.  I realize now, that it didn't work.  Instead, what I thought it did, was make the contestants who were behind in votes metaphorically feel like they were involved in a sorority hazing.  That was NOT my intention.  I hope you will all participate in the future, and not hold my ignorance against me. 
So, what am I going to change?
No more voting.
Nope.  It's not fair to bloggers who are incredibly creative, but don't have a large following.  It puts them at an unfair advantage, and I don't like to handicap people who are in the same boat as me.  After all, when looking at the odds, I wouldn't have even been able to win MY OWN contest.  Not that I would enter myself...but you know.
From this point on, your projects will be scored by an anonymous panel of judges I have recruited to be my "brain trust".  There will be 4 permanent members, and 1 revolving member.  The revolving member will be the winner from the previous month.  This person can still compete in the competition, they just will not score themselves.  The scores will be taken from each brain trust member, and averaged.  The person with the highest overall average score, will be declared the winner. 
The brain trust will give you a score between 1-10 in up to 5 different categories, for a top score from each judge of 50.  These categories will include things such as "originality", "time spent", "creativivity", "finished product", and "effort". 
The 4 brain trust members' identities will only be known by me.  They are people who are NOT participating, and who DO NOT have any interest in who wins.  It will be completely unbiased.  Level playing field. 
You WILL have the ability to earn up to 1 bonus point added to your score after it's averaged, if you so choose...
IF you recruit someone else to participate, and they DO, make sure that they include that they heard about the contest from you in their post about it.  For every person you recruit, you will earn 1/4 of a point added to your score after it's averaged.  This could be HUGE if the competition is really tight.  You can recruit up to 4 people per competition, for a total of 1 extra point.  Once someone has been recruited, they cannot be recruited again...obviously. 
The grand prize will be determined by a combination of scores and votes, in a "Dancing with the Stars" type scoring system. 
Have I confused you yet?
The only other change will be in regard to linking.  All linking will take place between Saturday morning and Sunday night.  Sunday night at 10 pm central time, the link will be closed.  Judging will begin on Monday.  The winner will be determined by the time the next mission is announced.  If you know you will be out of town on the day of linking, you may post early, or schedule it to post on time, let me know, and I will link it for you after my post is published. 
Does that all make sense?  If not, oh well, it really only has to make sense to me and my brain trust.
So, now that this post is already a mile long, let's get to the fun stuff!
Fun Facts about October's candy:

• There is a national day to celebrate this candy.  (October 30th)
• 1 serving contains only about 140 calories.
• More than 35 million pounds will be produced this year!
• A cup of it has fewer calories than a cup of raisins.
• Halloween accounts for 75% of it's annual production.

Any guesses?
October's mission, should you choose to accept it, is:

GOOD LUCK!!!  Linking will take place on SATURDAY OCTOBER 30TH (that worked out perfectly, eh?!) and will close on Halloween night.  Winner should be announced by Tuesday, the 2nd of November.

Fun fact were found HERE and picture is courtesy of Google Images

Answers to anticipated questions:  YES you can use different colored candy corn, if you should come accross some.  YES you can also use the pumpkins, but if you do so, please also try to incorporate either real candy corn into it, or the additional colors of yellow and white.  NO your project DOES NOT have to contain actual candy corn.  Remember, it can also be inspired by candy corn, or be made to look like it.  That being said, using the actual candy may or may not score you extra points with certain judges...it's up to them.