21st Annual National Sweepstakes Convention – Day 4

The convention ends at noon on the last day, but since some people have to leave early to catch a flight home, they always do the draws first.  For a few of them, they wanted it to be really fair so they blindfolded and gloved Bob.

Craig won a $100 MasterCard gift card.  What an amazing convention.  I don’t think we have won as much in the past five conventions combined.  I guess this was our winning year.

Then it was my turn to speak.  I gave a brief overview of Helene Hadsell’s WINuvers for WISHcraft one day workshop.  (She told me during my visit in 2008 that I was welcome to resurrect her course as she had no intention of teaching it again.  I hope to turn it into a seminar or webinar in the near future.)  The main focus is her SPEC method: Select it, Project it, Expect it and Collect it.  Helene donated three copies of her book to be given away as prizes.

(If you want to learn more about SPEC from Helene herself, you can either purchase a copy of her book The Name It And Claim It Game on her website; Delta Sciences and/or you can listen to one or both of my online radio interviews with her: Interview 1, Interview 2.)

I then wore two other speaking hats as the next two presentations I did were for those not able to be present.  My first hat was for Carol McLaughlin, owner of This N That Sweepstakes Newsletter and ANN-tics by Carol.  She is also the host of the next (and last!!) Northeast Mini Sweepstakes Convention.  It will be held in Hershey PA from October 15-17, 2010.  It is already 75% sold out, so if you wish to attend, please get your registrations in ASAP as the balance of the tickets will not last very long.

My next hat was for SweepstakesHub (@SweepstakesHub).  They are a new sweepstakes website and wanted to introduce their services to the sweeping community at large.  (You can listen to my online interview with co-founder Rodrigo Benadon here.)  The Green Sweeps section is my favourite part of their site as it features sweepstakes that have an environmentally friendly, natural or organic slant.  (My alter-ego the Lucky Yogini loves the fact winning can be combined with making the world a better place.)  SweepstakesHub also donated prizes.  It was a lot of fun handing out a few cash filled envelopes.

I wasn’t finished yet.  A partner of SweepstakesHub, My Tek Life (@myteklife) donated ten 1-year subscriptions to their magazine.

After I got off the stage, the convention was almost officially over.  There was only one last thing to be done; the passing of the draw drum to the next volunteer convention committee leaders; John and Debra Dambra.

The 22^nd Annual National Sweepstakes Convention will be held from June 16-19, 2011 in Fort Wayne IN.  I’ll post further details as soon as I have them.  (As a side note, the 2012 convention will be held in Atlanta GA and will be hosted by the Birons -of Puzzle Postcards & More – who also hosted the 2009 sweepstakes convention that was held in Manchester, NH.  I have no further details at this time.)

Now a trip to Minneapolis MN wouldn’t be complete without a stop at the Mall of America (@mallofamerica).

After we packed up the vendor table we had to have lunch anyway, so off to the mall!  I had heard of Famous Dave’s BBQ, (Carolyn Factoid #57: I love pork.) so I wasn’t passing up an opportunity for great ribs or melt-in-your-mouth pulled pork.  It had been almost 7 hours since we last ate.  We ordered the Feast for Two. WOW!  There was so much food it’s served on a garbage can lid!!

After a quick wander around the mall.  (It’s so big they can fit an entire amusement park in the middle.)  We hit the road for the 15 hour drive home.

I can hardly wait until the next convention.  There is nothing like being around fellow contestors.  Maybe I’ll see you there!