Weighing in on a few points:
1. there's no problem having pros and non-pros compete HERE, because the general skill and knowledge levels are so high (= what a great bunch we all are!

)
2. how would anonymity be handled? Surely we don't want to clutter up the membership list with a lot of new assumed names? Anyway, I can't imagine this turning into a popularity contest -- I think we can trust each other to vote on the merits of the recipes, not on who submits them. (Now, if this were some OTHER boards ... well, you know what I mean.

) Besides, it would be neat to see what people come up with; we might be surprised and have to revise our mental images of each other.
3. INGREDIENT is a great basis. For example, tomatoes. Oops, that won't work for members in the Southern Hemisphere, will it? Maybe something really, REALLY basic, like pasta dough? (Assume using either home-made OR bought.) Or better yet, pasta dough AND lemons! The sweet/savory sides could both come up with something interesting, then! (And if you DO call for a seasonal or "unusual" ingredient as well, it's got to be something universally available -- either in stores or on the web.)
4. In the first round, recipes should NOT be judged on spelling, but on understandability and clarity of instructions. We should all be able to figure out just by reading whether or not a recipe is do-able, no? That is, that everything called for in the instructions is listed with the ingredients, and so on. Anything not really basic should be explained well.
5. Measurements should be given in both metric and US forms.
6. the proposed deadline is less than 1 month away. Can we possibly make submissions due 15 October, round 1 voting close on 31 October, and testing and round 2 voting close 1 December? So many members are so busy, we need a bit more time to do this right.
7. Has anyone had experience publishing a community or organizational cookbook? That would be a great thing to do with ALL the recipes submitted (once we offer advice on how to "fix" those not chosen). I volunteer to be on the editing team.