Where does the time go?  It’s Tuesday and this is the first chance I have had to blog again about the convention.  Sandra on the other hand was able to blog about the convention (her day 2 post), and she managed to blog about a few of the other speakers and their great entry tips (cooking & baking contests).

Saturday was a very full day as the vendor room opened early and there were activities until almost midnight.  Sandra was scheduled to give three speeches as she is very knowledgeable in all areas of sweepstakes.  (There are over 2000 sweepstakes-related articles on the About.com website.)  However, I am assuming she does not have a lot of public speaking experience because she made a very common public speaking error.  She spoke too quickly.  It is easy to do when you want to ensure you cover all the points in your speech.

(I have to credit being a member of Toastmasters for helping me improve my public speaking skills over the past two years.  This year I completed both my Competent Communicator and Competent Leadership pins and I have just started my Advanced Toastmasters Bronze badge.  I highly recommend joining Toastmasters.  It’s a perfect organization to join for anyone who has to give presentations either in an office or to large groups.)

It actually worked in the attendees’ favor because she had extra time we were able to cover topics not originally on the agenda.  Since one reason many attended the convention was to learn more about the hobby, we certainly benefited from Sandra’s short speeches.

Craig (my husband) spoke late in the afternoon on text messaging contests.  Everyone enjoyed pulling out their cell phones for a hands-on session.  We even had a few instant winners!  (Try texting JONES to 64000 if you have a US wireless provider and see if you are an instant winner too.)

Then we all dressed up for dinner, enjoyed a fabulous buffet dinner, and gave out the vendor raffle prizes, the mailed-in raffle prizes, and the biggest prize donations for the weekend.  I donated an 8GB iPod Nano so the winner would be able to listen to all my online radio show iTunes podcasts.  No excuses!

Stevan of Wellsboro, PA won the lucky basket in my vendor table raffle and Lauralee of Manchester, NH won the iPod we donated.