Voting, Research & Giveaway Rules

The Golden Toe Awards and voter giveaway are organised by Adam Graff, trading as Minimal-list. Correspondence address: Atlantic Pavilion, Albert Dock, Salthouse Quay, Liverpool L3 4AE, United Kingdom.

Questions can be sent to adam@minimal-list.org.

By submitting a vote you agree to these rules and the website terms. The Privacy Policy explains how personal information is handled. Voting is free and no purchase is required. You may vote without entering the giveaway or joining a mailing list.

Voting opens at 00:00 UTC on 19 October 2026 and closes at 00:00 UTC on 16 November 2026, meaning the final voting day is 15 November. A submitted vote must be verified by email to count. Verification remains available until 00:00 UTC on 17 November 2026, or 24 hours after your verification link was issued, whichever is sooner.

Choose one favourite per category, based only on firsthand experience. For a product award, you must own or have personally worn the pair you choose. For Kids, a parent or carer may vote for a pair their child has worn and that they have direct experience of buying or using. For a brand or retailer award, you must have direct experience of that brand or shop. Skip categories where you do not have that experience; you do not have to complete all ten. No new purchase is needed to take part. Use your own email address. Minimal-list may review duplicate, automated, ineligible or suspicious submissions, reconcile free-text entries to the correct eligible product or organisation, and exclude invalid votes while preserving the raw submission record for audit purposes. Sponsors do not receive extra votes or influence validation or results.

Giveaway entry is optional, free and limited to people aged 18 or over. Select the separate giveaway option when submitting your vote. An opted-in verified vote gives one draw entry. Up to four optional research answers about first use, recent wearing frequency, personal purchases and the main purchasing barrier can add one entry each and an Instagram follow declaration can add one further provisional entry. A confirmed Minimal-list newsletter subscription adds one entry, for a maximum of seven entries per verified normalised email address. Draw administrators cannot enter the giveaway.

Newsletter participation is optional and separate from voting and results emails. Existing subscribers qualify with the same verified voting email. New subscribers must choose the separate newsletter opt-in. Pending or failed subscriptions do not count until confirmed; a subscription claim must be made before voting closes. You can unsubscribe at any time.

All votes and optional bonus claims must be submitted before 00:00 UTC on 16 November 2026. Verification can activate claims made before that deadline during the verification period; it does not extend the deadline for making new claims. Extra draw entries never increase the weight of your award votes. Voting in more categories does not create additional base entries. Repeating a submission or answer does not create extra entries. Instagram declarations may be checked before the draw and an unverified declaration may be removed without affecting the person’s award votes.

Entry is open worldwide, subject to these rules and applicable local law. A prize is only confirmed for a selected entrant if the relevant supplier can fulfil that prize to the entrant under its current delivery and redemption rules. Supplier restrictions may include destination, shipping cost, taxes or duties, model, size, stock, custom-order, voucher or expiry conditions.

Minimal-list checks the selected entrant against the applicable supplier policy before confirming that prize. If delivery or redemption is not possible, the reason is recorded and that prize is redrawn. This check is made after selection rather than by restricting every voter against every prize in advance. Unless a supplier explicitly agrees otherwise, entrants remain responsible for costs or obligations the supplier’s confirmed terms place on the recipient.

The initial draw is planned for 19–25 November 2026 after vote and entry validation. Eligible entries are selected using the campaign draw tooling from the validated entry pool. Each valid entry has an equal chance of selection for that prize. A person may win at most one prize. Repeat entries and allocations under the same verified normalised email are blocked; different email addresses are not automatically matched to a single person.

Selected entrants are contacted using the email attached to their verified participation record. The notification states an exact response deadline in UTC, seven days after the notification is successfully sent. We check for delivery failures and correct or retry a failed notification before starting that period. No reminder is promised after successful notification. If a selected entrant is ineligible, cannot receive the relevant prize, declines it, or does not respond within seven days, that prize may be redrawn. A winner is not final until eligibility, delivery and claim checks are complete.

Fulfilment may be by a private voucher or gift code supplied to the winner, or by a direct handoff to the prize provider. Minimal-list may share only the contact and fulfilment details reasonably needed for a confirmed provider handoff. Cash alternatives are not offered unless a supplier expressly agrees one. Prizes are not transferable before confirmation except where Minimal-list and the supplier agree otherwise.

After the draw, Minimal-list will make information available on request to show that valid prizes were awarded. Ordinarily this is the surname and county or equivalent region of major prizewinners. You can object to disclosure, or ask us to reduce the information disclosed, by emailing adam@minimal-list.org before or after the draw. We will respect those objections when responding to public requests, while retaining the evidence needed to demonstrate a valid award to the Advertising Standards Authority if challenged. We will not use a winner’s photograph or social handle for publicity without their permission.

Your choices, country and any optional answers help Minimal-list run the awards, understand barefoot footwear preferences and produce State of Barefoot research. Optional questions can be skipped without losing your vote. Research answers may be linked internally to the participation record for validation and analysis and are not automatically anonymous at submission.

Minimal-list may publish grouped findings and share aggregate or anonymised insights with brands, retailers, sponsors and research partners, including in free reports and paid research products such as the State of Barefoot Industry Intelligence Pack. Identifiable respondent data is not sold to sponsors and sponsors cannot control the findings.

If you add an optional message to a brand or shop, Minimal-list may share it with the recipient without your name or email. Do not put personal information in that message. Messages do not affect vote counts.

Your email is used for verification and the participation or prize administration you request. Newsletter signup and results-email consent are separate choices. Agreeing to these rules does not subscribe you to marketing.

Minimal-list may take proportionate steps to protect the campaign from fraud, technical abuse or material error. If a technical or supplier problem affects a prize or draw, Minimal-list may pause, redraw or amend the affected part where reasonably necessary while preserving the independence of the award vote.

Material changes will be published on this page with a new version and will not be used to silently reduce an already confirmed prize or expand how an earlier participant’s personal data may be used.

Identifiable records are kept while needed to validate the awards, administer requested giveaway participation, analyse the 2026 research and resolve queries, and longer only where required for legal or recordkeeping purposes. When identifiers are no longer needed, they will be removed or records anonymised. Anonymous aggregate findings may be kept and reused.

Contact adam@minimal-list.org to ask about your information, request access, correction or deletion, or object to its research use, subject to applicable rights and necessary campaign recordkeeping.