From The Contest Queen

I was only back from Texas one day and I went on a road trip with my contesting buddy Rick.  So on Wednesday Rick and I drove down to Rochester NY to meet Donna DeClemente of DDC Marketing and then attend a Lucky Lilacs club meeting.

We meet Donna at Northfield and had a very interesting conversation about sweeping from both sides of the hobby.  (I’ll be doing a guest blog posting for Donna shortly.  I’ll keep you posted.)  The time passed too quickly and we had to be off to our next meeting.  The conversation had been so interesting that we wished we could have continued and had dinner with her.  Maybe next time.

The Lucky Lilacs meet on a Wednesday evening once per month.  I thought they always met at their local Wegmans, but apparently, the past two meeting were held at local bars.  Each of those meetings moved location because each time a member had won a fantastic prize and they celebrated.

Nine members attended the meeting that evening.  Similar to the DFWinners, they began their meeting with a Roll Call announcing all their winnings since the previous meeting.  What they did differently was, they also pass around a lucky green candle.  When it was their turn, if a member had a win bigger then $500, they blew out the candle and absorbed the winning energy while all the other club members clapped and cheered.  What fun!

We then had draws for: decorated envelopes, regular stamps, postcard stamps, lottery tickets, blank 3×5s and at the end, all the losing tickets were put in to a bin and a name was draw for a Better-Than-Nothing gift bag.  I won the decorated envelopes, WOO HOO!, and since we don’t mail-in much in Canada anymore, I gave them to the member who had the least amount of wins for the past month.  I guess good karma came back around because I then won the Better-Than-Nothing prize.

What a fun night we had!

Rick and I then drove home in the first big snow fall of the year.  I finally crawled into bed at 3am.  The next time I go back, it will definitely be in warmer weather!

If you currently not a member of a sweeping or contesting club, I highly recommend it.  There is no words to describe the energy one receives from being around other winners.  The friends I have made in this hobby far outweigh any wins I have ever had.

WOO HOO! I am in Texas feeling very lucky. I am here for four days learning heaps from Helene Hadsell!!

(Helene is a bit shy <GRIN>)

If you are not familiar with Helene, she is the author of The Name It & Claim It Game and she won every contest she entered.  She is currently working on a very exciting project with a company in Malaysia.  She requires a few new testimonials.  If you have read her book and have won something using her techniques, please email me your story.  Helene would be most appreciative.

Thank you.

One of the nice things about having other friends that also enter contests and sweepstakes as a hobby is, if they can’t use the prize they might share it with you.

My friend Richard won tickets to a Toronto pub crawl with Labatt for Alexander Keiths 213th birthday.  Richard and his wife couldn’t go so we volunteered to have a good time in their place.  Labbatt really knows how to treat their customers and winners.  We had a very good time with food, drink, song and fun at every stop along the way.  Sadly I didn’t get a photo with Craig and eight beer wenches.  (His last record was six beer bunnies in Banff.)

At the first stop, we subjected ourselves to the greening of the hands ritual and holding them up as moose antlers.

Sorry Richard, we didn’t save you a piece of cake.  THANKS!!  (To be fair, we have also shared prizes with Richard & Chris.  What good is having fun if you can’t share it?)

The past few days have been extremely busy.  This is the first chance I have had to blog between all the travelling, shopping, schmoozing, selling and winning.

Early Thursday morning we left Oshawa to head down to the convention.  After a few unscheduled stops and a beautiful scenic fall drive, we arrived at our hotel at 9pm.

No sleeping in late for us.  Friday morning, after our favourite breakfast at Cracker Barrel, we were off to run errands.  We had to buy a prize donation for Saturday night’s banquet, souvenirs, donations for that evening’s Hershey Bonanza and CHOCOLATE!  On our way to Chocolate World we passed a street sign that I just had to stop and photograph.

When we got back to the hotel we had just enough time to set up my vendor table before the convention officially started.  After dinner the Meet and Greet began with an Ice Cream Social.  After mixing and mingling the Hershey Bonanza began.  Neither Craig nor I won a basket full of chocolate themed goodies.

Then Let’s Sweep a Deal began.  Those dressed as a prize they won were eligible to win extra prizes.  Somehow I forgot reading about the costumes in my convention information packet, so we didn’t pack anything fun to wear.

Craig won some CDs in the evening’s regular draws. WOO HOO!

The best part of the evening for me was finally meeting Sandra Grauschopf of Contests.About.com.  (You can read her version of the evening’s events on her blog.)

I found this really cool website/program to assist individuals and small businesses run simple online sweepstakes: Contest Machine.

I thought I would try it out here:

Who can enter? Anyone.

How does one enter? Filling out the Contest Machine entry form. One entry per person please.

When does it end? The contest closes at 11:59pm Eastern Time on Friday October 10th.

The prize? A bottle of I AM LUCKY Essential Roll-on Oil 10ml.

The draw? Contest Machine has a built in random draw program to select the winner.

I would also appreciate some feedback.  Please submit a comment and let me know what you think if the Contest Machine entry widget.

GOOD LUCK!!

Knowing how much I like the Law of Attraction, or anything else to do with abundance and fun, my friend Lisa send me a link to a very cool website: The Cosmic Ordering Website.

The site looks like any basic online store. What makes this site unique and fun is you get to place your order, for health, wealth, love, grand prizes, or anything else you desire, with The Universe, for FREE!

Place your order, know it has been received and expect your order to be filled promptly. What are you going to order today?

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What fun we had last night! We arrived at Chapters at 6:00pm to a crowd of about 200 kids and 100 adults. The Events Manager for Indigo Books and Music met us. When I introduced myself he smiled and said, “Of course you won!” (He was the one that arranged for my two book signings at Chapters/Indigo and remembered me.)

We were lead to a seating area about a foot from the stage and waited until the band arrived. Ten minutes before the show we were ushered into a backroom, got to meet the Barenaked Ladies and had a professional photographer take our picture with the band.

We then retook our seats on the floor and they played a 30 minute concert singing several songs of their new kid’s CD Snack Time including; 789 (free MP3 download on site) and an old favourite, One Week.

Afterwards we were first in line to get an autographed book and CD set. I think Nicole already wore it out playing it over and over today.

Many sweepstakes clubs have started holding their spring meetings. Sadly, I am not able to attend all the meetings I am invited to. Today, I have the pleasure of blogging “on the road” as I am in Warren MI. Yesterday, my husband and I attended the 2008 Michigan Wolverine’s Sweepstakes Club Spring Meeting. This year’s theme was Go Hawaiian and the MC was Al Sayward.

The club organized a great meeting as all the elements were there: friends, food, fun and PRIZES.

The meeting was held from Noon-4:00pm at the Gazebo. Just under 100 people attended and since we have been attending meetings in the U.S. since 2005, we saw many friends.

While we ate dessert, the winning began. There were all types of raffles, contests and draws including: a Super Sweeper Raffle, a 50/50 draw, Stamped Envelopes and a Decorated Envelope Contest. Everyone won at least one prize.

A great time was had by all. I hope we are able to attend next year.

Between the holidays, a sick webmaster and a myriad of technical difficulties with Bell Canada Web Hosting, I am finally able to post my first blog. YEAH!

Add me to your RSS feed, as I will be posting my sweepstakes thoughts, ideas, comments and rants here instead of my e-newsletter The Winning EDGE.

It seemed time for a change and its here. I have a good feeling about 2008!

Carolyn