For your shopping list this weekend....

First of all welcome back to all the Grape Vine readers who haven't been here since the blog closed down two years ago. You are going to find a lot more of interest to you here now than there was then.

Over the few days since Grape Vine went to the printers, I have found several new comps that need some action from you before the update is due to go out, so here are some ideas to add to this weekend's shopping list.

Neck collar on Finlandia Vodka (mine came from Tesco) has an entry form for a draw to win a trip to Helsinki to see the Midnight Sun. You will need the entry form and your till receipt. Closes 11 Jun.

Appletiser 330ml cans offer the chance to win one of 3 shopping trips to New York with £5,000 to spend or 1,000 x designer handbag. To enter, text (normal rate) APPLE followed by your name and the 6 digit batch code from the bottom of your promotional can to 86688. Pre-selected random winning moments have been allocated, all of which are between 6am and midnight so only enter between these times. One entry per person per day and max 5 prizes per household. Northern Ireland residents may enter without purchase by sending their details, including email address, to Appletiser Big Apple Promo, PO Box 661, Harrogate HG1 9HN. Closing 31 Oct.

Spar is offering 3 x pair of tickets to the AVIVA European Trials and UK Championships in Birmingham on Saturday 26th June. To enter, go to 'Win tickets to the AVIVA European Trials and UK Championships!' page at http://www.spar.co.uk/ Closing 17 Jun.

Martin McColl newsagents have tags on the Coca Cola shelves offering a chance to win a home entertainment system. The instructions tell you to buy a Coke then text CELEBRATE to 82100. No terms and conditions are given so this could close at any time! Texts to the other Coke comps are normal rate and allow one entry per phone per day, so it should be safe to assume the same applies here.

I spotted a sign on the window of a Coral betting shop saying that signing up for World Cup Text alerts could win you £500. I wasn’t able to stop the car and look for further information but if you are planning a flutter on the World Cup you might like to look into what this involves.

Even scanter info - a pub I passed - it looked as if it was an independent one rather than a chain, had a sign outside saying "Win great England prizes!"

Finally don't forget to enter the monthly competition at www.compersgrapevine.co.uk - this month's magazine was so crammed with comps that I didn't have room to include it!

Comping can change your life!

Today's post is from Duncan Nagle. Many years ago I won one of my first - and funniest - web competition prizes from him, a pair of remote controlled vibrating knickers. I'll hand over to him now for a moving story about how comping can change lives.

The year 2000 – the place London.

While many of the residents of the Big Smoke were chuckling about a wobbly bridge over the Thames, or the giant tent just down the road, I was face-down on the floor – not through some drink or drug-induced merriment, or even through being on the wrong end of a stout stick, simply through losing consciousness for “no apparent reason”.

“Just one of those things that happen” you would think – low blood-pressure, lack of sleep, stress; all of these could be contributory factors to my pavement-dive, and it was a one-off after all.

Except it wasn’t.

During the next couple of weeks these black-outs became more and more frequent; at work, on the tube, once in a public lavatory and at home. Being quite a large chap, who at the time had quite a small child I decided that “enough was enough” and that I should trouble the NHS.

The next couple of weeks were a whirlwind of seizures, doctor’s appointments and worry; I wasn’t able to go into work and the bills weren’t going to pay themselves. At least there was my daily fix of competition-entry to keep me sane.

Eventually I was directed to an eminent Neurologist who poked and prodded me for a bit before declaring “Hmm – it could be a brain tumour, could be a heart defect – could be something else. See you in a couple of months”. Comforting.

The day after this wonderfully reassuring appointment I received a phone call out of the blue which went something like this:

“Hi, is that Duncan?”

“It certainly is – who is this?”

“You recently entered a competition in Auto Express to win a selection of Sony goods and…” (At this point my sales-call synapses kicked in)

“Look, I’ll be honest, I’m not really looking to subscribe at this time, if that’s okay!”

“Oh no, this isn’t a sales call – YOU’VE WON.” (I believe there was an awkward and slightly embarrassed silence here on my part).

So the call continued; Sony had provided £2k’s worth of Mini Disc (remember them?) equipment, including a top-of-the-range In-Car unit. The problem being that I didn’t drive (and was in no fit state to drive in any case!). “Not a problem” said the friendly PR girl – “I’ll see what we can do!”

What she did changed the course of my life.

Later on the very same day I received a call from the same PR girl who announced with some glee that instead of the car stereo they would provide “one of those new DVD players”. Great, I thought – although I doubt it will ever replace video, it will be nice to have.

As this was happening it became apparent that my condition was more long-term than we had first thought, and the decision was made to sell-up and leave London and take advantage of the cheaper house prices across the rest of the country – specifically the area where my daughters’ mother grew up, near her parents. (My main worry when moving house was that any undelivered prize wouldn’t find its way to me; I was entering every DVD-related competition going and didn’t want to be robbed of a prize!).

In the space of a few months I had gone from being in charge of 130 staff, working all hours of the day, living in the capital and earning a fantastic wage to being “trapped” in the Midlands, with uncertainty abound – questions about health, work and money being at the fore, and answers not being forthcoming.

It was at this time that I had a brainwave; I had for a while owned and operated a website, I was able to work from home, and had a fair amount of time on my hands – why shouldn’t I review DVDs? Perhaps I could run some competitions, too – maybe just one or two to keep interest ticking over.

And that was what happened.

I emailed every PR Company, Film studio and DVD producer that I could find trying to scavenge review copies and competition prizes for what I imagined would be a small daily-entry affair, with mini-prizes mostly going to members of competitions newsgroups, and directories such as Loquax. I had created a monster.

Within 6 months I was running 50-odd competitions a month, all daily entry, and mostly with 3-5 winners of each prize – that would mean an average of 200 winners a month to draw, contact, get personal details, send out prizes, list – and that was before the next load of competitions were posted. Add missing prizes, dial-up internet, “hard-coded” websites (this was before the days of the blog) and a constant barrage of press releases via post, fax and email and it was a hard slog – I didn’t really have time to watch any of the DVDs or even enter comps and as such it was self-defeating. Being unconscious for a fair proportion of time also didn’t help matters.

As time went on I eventually scaled back running the competitions before abandoning them altogether – I was now running a shopping site which was bringing in a living wage and was far less hassle; not having to plan my life around making sure that I was at home on the 1^st of every month was in itself a bonus.

Meanwhile I was living the life of a virtual recluse; not able to go anywhere on my own in case I were to pass out lead to little exercise, weight gain, and depression, meaning that I got to the point where I didn’t want to go out! I had at last, however, received a diagnosis – I was suffering from “Non-epileptic Vasovagal Syncope” – seizures that were unexplained.

This cycle carried on for a couple of years, and I entered (and indeed won) the occasional competition – an iPod from BT, an iMac, a plasma TV and World Cup party from MasterCard, £1000 to spend at John Lewis, several prizes from “Brainteaser” – the list went on. On a personal level though I was really unhappy – unhappy with myself and unhappy with my personal circumstances, but feeling unable to change them.

I don’t want to go into all the details, but eventually, enough was enough – I was in contact with a load of old friends via the medium of facebook and realised that I had to make a change to my life; during this period I learnt three valuable lessons:

1. If you are unhappy, don’t just “put up with a situation” – you only have one life and need to live, not just exist. Happiness is a RIGHT, not something that is EARNED.


2. Never, ever, ever, ever, EVER, stay with someone “for the sake of the kids”. (Just make sure that you are there for the children if they ever need you).


3. If you have a medical condition, don’t be defined by it – work it into your life wherever you can.

So I left the mortgage-free security of a large house, for a room rental in a place half a mile away (close enough to see my daughter 3 or 4 times a week). At this point I wasn’t entering many comps!

After a short time (amazingly short, some said at the time), I met the woman who was to be my wife; after feeling almost emotionally anesthetized for so many years I experienced love and indeed joy; okay, I was skint – but this was an emotional richness beyond anything I had ever known. (And still is!). Eventually we moved into another rental place (still within bussing distance of my daughter), settled with our three cats and I once again had time for entering competitions.

Well, the comping scene had changed slightly; where were the “No Purchase Necessary” entry routes? When did stamps get so expensive? What the hell is Twitter? Just how many text-entry competitions are there? Loquax was still there, but the old newsgroup had apparently turned into a bit of a ghost town and with so many more people entering, my chances of winning would be even slimmer than before.

Within a week of restarting I had won £500 worth of Virgin Vouchers from Jaffa Cakes; the old me would have thought “Maybe £400-450 on eBay”, but instead we booked several “experiences”, including a Balloon Flight and Aerial Extreme ropes course. Not something that would have entered my stratosphere of thought a mere 18 months beforehand, but something that will live with my wife and I forever.

The Gods of Comping continued to smile on us, and we won a digital camera from Appletiser – perfect for getting snaps of all the days out that we were having, for now I was living.

Nothing was safe from our roving photographic and video eye: music festivals, weekends away, theatre and comedy, plus – to celebrate our 1^st Wedding Anniversary – the Cardiff Cheese Festival.

That’s right – a Festival of Cheese. In Cardiff.

In truth the visit to South Wales probably won’t go down as one of the best weekends we have ever spent together – it was cheesy, but just not festive enough, and all in all a bit of a rip-off. But it mattered not, for we had film; film that was fast filling up our facebook pages as people decided that myself and Karen “Should have a travel show”, and lead to me being described thus: “The unwanted child of Judith Chalmers and Charlie Brooker”. Which I take as a compliment.

Competitions aren't just about huddling over a PC..

With the seizures more under control, and in between going away, filming, uploading, spending as much time as possible with my daughter and trying to get some work done, I still found time for competitions – it was usually a quick look on Loquax at the “closing today” section and I only entered for prizes that I really wanted. When seeing one such prize listed my heart did a bit of a somersault:

“Win 12 holidays over 12 months and £20,000”

Now then, I thought, this seems like the sort of prize that I would really like to win – so I duly clicked through for a peek and discover the entry route and was confronted with magic words: “Upload a Video”

The competition entry involved sending a video (of no more than two minutes) reviewing something. Anything – a book, a holiday, shampoo – anything; as it was the last day for entry I cobbled together something from our CheeseFest and fired it away – surely I was too late to have any chance in any case?

Well, apparently I wasn’t! Out of over 3,000 entries a panel of judges made up of industry specialists have chosen me as one of the ten finalists, which is where you (if you are still reading at this point!) come in to it.

This is where it has the potential to all get a bit “X-Factor”, so I apologise if that is how I now come across, but the competition is now down to a straight popularity contest, and I need your votes!

I have until June 11^th to get as many votes as possible from all quarters; I have so far been utterly stunned by the kindness of strangers – people have gone above and beyond the call of duty in getting their friends, family, workmates and people they haven’t seen for 30 years to vote for me, but as with all of these things, I need more.

As you can see from the run-down of the past decade of my life above, I am just a normal bloke; I’m not a singer, a dancer or a model and I don’t have a massive online entourage of followers to carry me through to the finish line, all I have is the general public. Some people would see this as a disadvantage, but not me – after all I am basing my entire campaign on the fact that you don’t have to be extraordinary to do the extraordinary.

If this seems like the sort of manifesto you could get on board with, or if you want comping to change my life twice, please, please vote for me using the link below – I hope that I have given a little bit of hope to some, entertainment to others, and maybe an excuse to “change a life” to even more. Thanks again!

To vote, please go to: http://www.lowcostholidaysbigsearch.com/Finalists/Profile/6 and click Vote – no registration, no long forms to fill in (you can also see the original Cardiff Video here).

There are also several other ways of staying in touch with how I am campaigning between now and 11^th June:

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/voteduncan – if you are on Twitter, please follow and RT the voting link!

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vote-Duncan/122312404454658 – please join and invite all your friends to join and vote.

Blog: http://www.voteduncan.me.am/ – keep up to date with me as I campaign around the country!

Winning treats for tinies

As many of you know, I am a very proud Grandma to the gorgeous Lara. For many years now I have been able to spoil my daughters, and sometimes their partners too, with extra treats that I have won for them - tickets, computer games and consoles, electrical goods and gadgets, shopping vouchers and even occasionally holidays. Now I hope to be able to do the same for Lara too.

My daughter - Lara's Mummy - has a blog about her life as a new parent, and at the moment she is running a competition to win a beautiful Stellina Baby cashmere baby dress for ages 3-6 months. The closing date is 13th June. Find the competition at Mellow Mummy and do please have a look around while you are there, if only to see the lovely photos of Lara dotted around the site.

Another site that has lots of regular competitions for treats for babies, children and new parents is Little Stuff - they have new competitions every few weeks so keep an eye on the site.

If you are a grandparent, take a look at BeGrand.net As well as lots of useful advice and support for grandparents, they are currently running a competition for you to win a place on a week-long summer holiday day camp for your grandchild - enter here This closes at noon on June 7th.

I wonder if any "old hand" compersrecognise the 3-D OXO game cubes that Lara is playing with in the photo above? It must be well over 20 years since I won that. Sometimes even a tiny prize can bring years of pleasure.

Win an African Safari at Lidl

This competition appeared too late for the Grape Vine update and closes too soon to be covered in the June issue of Grape Vine, but I didn't want you to miss out on it. Lidl and Pepsi Max have a brilliant prize on offer - a safari holiday to South Africa for four people.

The prize includes 8 nights in a 5* hotel and 2 nights in a private game reserve, with two game drives, car hire, a tour of Cape Town Stadium, a tour of table Mountain and a Flip Video camcorder.

To enter, you need a Lidl till receipt for a total spend of at least £20, dated between 24 May and 06 Jun. Go to www.lidl.co.uk and give the information from your receipt. One entry per person and per email address - make sure you stick to this because if you enter more than once, ALL your entries will be disqualified.

The comp closes at 9pm on 06 Jun and the prize holiday has to be taken by 30 Jun 2011.

And a quick reminder that there are only a few days left before the May competition at www.compersgrapevine.co.uk closes - don't miss this month's chance to win a 6 month subscription. And if you are already a subscriber, it's still worth entering as the six months will be added to your existing subscription.

If you've not seen Grape Vine before, why not send for a FREE sample copy? Send in your request using the site's contact page and please don't forget to include your postal address.

Win a 42" TV and a year's Sky subscription - and lots more competitions

What a week! I was supposed to be completely upgrading my computer system yesterday, but we had a power cut which lasted from 4am to 8pm, which meant I had to postpone the engineer's visit and didn't manage to do any work on Grape Vine all day.

However I have been out hunting for new competitions this morning and found lots of packs offering prizes - in the next issue of Grape Vine you will be able to read about new competitions on

Youngs Fish products
Hellmann's mayonnaise
Mornflake rolled oats
Pentel pens
Florette "Three Lions" salad
Jean-Christophe Novelli cooked meats
and the DVD "Horrid Henry's Ice Cream Dream"

If you long for the return of the tiebreaker competition, and have a child aged 5 or over, look out for the DVD as you will need the form from the pack to enter and the prize is a visit to the New Forest Ice Cream factory. The competition closes 31 July.

There was a leaflet on a Sky stand in the shopping mall to hand in for a draw to win a 42" TV, Sky+ HD box, year's Sky top TV package and £100 vouchers to spend on food and drink, with 10 runners up prizes of the £100 food and drink vouchers. The leaflet says it is available in Sky shops, but this was a very small unmanned stall. There was no box to put entries in and a couple of hopeful people had left entries lying on the stall. I'll be looking for somewhere more secure to hand in my own entry before the closing date of 04 June. This is the form to look out for:

May Update on the way....

If you are a Grape Vine reader and signed up to the mid-month update email list, your biggest-ever update should have just arrived in your inbox.

Unfortunately, words like "Win", "Prize" and "Competition" are often used by spam filters to mark emails as spam - in fact my own copy of this month's update went straight into myspam folder. So if you haven't received your update, check the spam folder first and see if it is there. If not, you can read it online or contact me I will send you a replacement copy as a Word attachment

Wearing a different hat - when comping meets crafting

Most of you reading this blog will be compers, so you may not know that one of my other passions is craft, especially making hand made cards.

This week I was delighted to win the monthly draw over at Personal Impressions - a beautiful pad of 360 sheets of 12" x 12" papers made by K & Company, one of my favourite manufacturers. I was inspired to start using it straight away, and using just three sheets of paper and some bits and pieces from my existing stash, I made six cards.

The cards I make are sent to friends and family, swapped with other crafters through the Craft Swap Forum or sent to charities. At present I am making cards to donate to the Docrafts Cancer Research scheme, where the cards are sold through charity shops, and for Operation Blue Witch Squadron which supplies cards to RAF personnel serving overseas so they can send them to friends and family back home.

So yet again. comping has brought an unexpected treat into my life, and one that I will be able to share with others through the cards that I make. Three sheets down, 357 to go........