A Grape Night In

I was recently lucky enough to win a "Grape Night In" - a wine and food evening for 10 people. The idea was supposed to be that it would be held in my home, but as Laura and Kiki, who run the business, are based in London we decided that instead of dragging them and all the guests out to Hampshire, we would hold the event in the flat of my friend Andrew, who lives not far from Waterloo station - very convenient for everyone - and invite a selection of mutual friends.

Laura and Kiki  have only been running the business for a few months, both already well experienced in the wine trade. Their events are fun and relaxed - not evenings for wine snobs, but lively evenings where some unusual and interesting wines are paired with delicious dishes in a fun and informal atmosphere. Relaxed and informal it may be - but the girls are extremely knowledgable. They just aren't pompous about it!

The Grape Night In Girls

As well as the food and wine, there was a fun quiz that ran throughout the evening. You can imagine how competitive a room full of compers was about that! And at the end of it, there was no clearing up and no washing up. They brought all the glasses and dishes with them and even cleared away the empty bottles and dropped them off for recycling.

The theme of our evening was "London Calling"  and  here is the menu. No, I'm not going to explain where the place names come in to it,  just in case you are ever lucky enough to attend one of their events yourself.

Wines

Seilos Pinot Grigio/Riesling (Brazil) - NOTTING HILL

The Paddler Gruner Veltliner 2010 (Marlborough, NZ) - PUTNEY

Charles Melton 'Rose of Virginia' 2011 (Barossa Valley, AUS) - CAMDEN

Gran Cerdo Tempranillo 2010 (Spain) - BANK

Vino Hormigos Malbec Classico 2010 (Mendoza, ARG) - OXFORD STREET

 

Nibbles

Plantain Chips

Edaname Bean & Peashoot Salad

Anchovies & Peperonata

Chorizo &  Black Pudding Stew (or vegetarian alternative)

Bermondsey Spa cheese

 

The wines and food were all delicious, and the pairings of the wines and dishes worked extremely well.

 

As well as private events like this, which make  a great change from a traditional dinner party or formal wine tasting, Laura and Kiki run frequent public events such as dinners and wine tastings - you can see what's coming up on their events page. I see they have some Christmas packages lined up which I'm sure will be brilliant.

 

I was really delighted to win this prize, and would like to use this post to say a HUGE thank you to Laura and Kiki and to wish them well with the business. I'm sure we will be seeing you again soon!

How to Win Competitions Part 2- Make Your Entry Count

So you've found a competition and decided to give it a go? Great - good luck! But  before you enter, you need to check that you actually CAN enter.

The very first thing to look at is the closing date. Shops often have leaflets and packs on the shelves long after a competition has closed. In fact just today I was in a shop that had out-of-date leaflets for at least half a dozen competitions on display. And   websites very often leave the entry page showing after a competition has closed. Don't be fooled into thinking that because the form submits for you, you've still  managed to enter - your entry will just land in an abandoned inbox somewhere and be wasted.

Now check where the competition is based.  If you are looking for competitions online, especially on  Facebook, you may bump into competitions run by companies in the USA or the Republic of Ireland. Some clues that a site is based outside the UK are prices quoted in any currency other than £, and times given in any form other than GMT and BST.  For legal reasons,  these, and ones run in other non-UK companies, are often not open to UK residents. Look at the terms and conditions - it may specify the country(-ies) it is open to. And if it doesn't, and you really fancy entering,  check with the promoter. On Facebook, you can just write on their wall, on a website you will need to find the "contact us" page. But remember, if you win something from outside the EU, you may have to pay duty on it when it arrives in the UK!

One more thing to check is any age restrictions. These will always be stated in the rules, if they exist. For instance, in alcohol related competitions you will need to be over 18 to enter, or over 21 if the competition is also open in the USA. Some holidays will be provided by companies that specialise in holidays for certain age groups, like 18-30 or over 55,  and if a holiday prize includes car hire, you will need to be over 21, 25 or even 30 depending on the type of car on offer and the country where the holiday is to be taken.

Once you are sure you are entitled to enter,  make absolutely sure that you read the instructions. Around 1 in 5 of the entries to every competition get discarded for some reason - maybe the person has entered twice when only one entry is allowed, or they have been asked "what is your favourite colour" and they have replied "I would love to win this prize". Remember, if your entry follows the instructions it WILL end up in the hat, so with 1 in 5 of your rivals' entries likely to be discarded, your chance of winning has already gone up by 20%!

Blog your way to a brand new bed!

Warren Evans are giving away a brand new bed to the owner of Britain's Bravest Bedtime Toy. Whether you've shared your bed with the same teddy bear for 30 years, or your child has to have their army of toys tucked in with them at night, tell them about it on your blog with a link back to the competition page. The best story wins a new bed, and runner up gets a Warren Evans Perfect Memory Pillow. Email the URL of  your entry to competition@warrenevans.com. Competition ends 24 October 2012. Full details can be found here: http://www.warrenevans.com/blog/who-fights-the-monster-under-your-bed/?id=10

I hope the monsters under YOUR bed are less scary than the emus who used to live underneath mine. I just KNEW that as soon as I went to sleep, they would slither their long necks up the gap between the bed and the wall and peck me. Even now, if I have to sleep in a bed that is next to a wall, I make sure it is jammed really tightly against the wall to keep those pesky emus away!

It's National Grapevine Week - join in and win!

This morning I was watching announcements about it being National weeks for this and that (and probably The Other, but I don't follow that kind of Twitter feed). There are such a lot this week! it is

National Baking Week (compers! There are some lovely competitions on the site!)
National Chocolate Week
National Curry Week
National Pyjama Week
National Cocktail Week
National Hospice Care Week

and, if a week isn't long enough

National Pizza Month (OK, that's in the USA, but they celebrate Guy Fawkes Night so I reckon we're entitled to a slice of the pizza  action.)

So I started to feel a bit left out. I want a National Week! Therefore I have declared this

 

NATIONAL GRAPE VINE WEEK

 

And to celebrate, I'm giving you a chance to win a 3 month subscription to The Competition Grape Vine, the postal magazine for compers.  To enter, you need to be following me on Twitter and complete the steps in the Rafflecopter form below. Don't forget to paste in the URL of your tweet as your entry won't count without it!

 

The competition closes on October 14th (well, it will be at silly o'clock in the morning on the 15th as Rafflecopter works to an American time zone) and is open to UK residents aged 18 and over only.  The winner will be drawn using Rafflecopter's randomiser and contacted on October 15th. I'll be contacting the winner by DM, so don't say you've followed me if you haven't because I won't be able to DM you!


As usual, if the winner already subscribes, their subs will be extended.


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Vigilantes v. Cheats

This morning I got a text telling me I had £2,013 of  PPI to reclaim. The person who sent it was trying to cheat me in some way (No, I'm not going to reply to it to find out how). When I logged into my email account, I found half a dozen emails telling me I had won millions of dollars in foreign lotteries, or asking me to help transfer funds out of Nigeria. Yet again, somebody was trying to cheat me.

The world is full of cheats, and because of the attraction of getting something for nothing, comping attracts cheats like flies to a jam pot. There are people who set up multiple accounts in order to enter competitions dozens, hundreds or even thousands of times. This week a promoter told me of someone in the Ukraine who has thousands of fake IDs and has their computer programmed to constantly enter every competition they can find in each of the IDs.

Armed with such alarming statistics, it is very tempting to point and shout "CHEAT!" when we suspect that somebody isn't playing by the rules. But wait a minute..... this is Britain, and at the very heart of British law is the idea that a person is innocent until they are proved to be guilty. And this is a principle that we should all bear in mind before being the first to lay blame on somebody. Who are we to know what the facts are if a person appears ot have several Facebook accounts or is winning more than we think they statistically should? You might suspect them of cheating - but that is very, very different from having concrete proof.

Publicly "naming and shaming" and outing of suspected cheats can have a devastating effect on the life of somebody who is wrongly accused - just read the moving accounts of some of the victims quoted on Kelly Martin's blog .

So what CAN you do if you think somebody is cheating? Well, first of all, think about whether it affects you. If that person has gained an unfair advantage over you, and you think it genuinely IS unfair, then rather than confronting them, contact the promoter with your suspicions. And do present them as suspicions, not as facts. The promoter will have far more access to evidence that will prove or disprove your suspicion, for instance even a small blog running a competition through Rafflecopter will be able to check the IP address of all entrants. A bigger business with their own website will be able to check far more, even the version of browser software used by the entrant, so will soon be able to identify any genuine cheating. If a promoter can prove that there has been any element of cheating, it's up to them to decide what to do. Most of them will quietly disqualify the cheat, without making any kind of song and dance about it, sparing the feelings  of all concerned. Compers, whether honest ones or cheats, are human beings with real feelings. (Well apart from the occasional comping bot on Twitter - but more about those some other time)

And if you personally aren't affected? Maybe somebody else has told you about a cheat they have heard of, or you have seen somebody "named and shamed" on Facebook? Well, don't join a gang of vigilantes, looking to stir up trouble. Just shrug your shoulders, ask yourself "Am I having fun yet?" and move on to a  different competition.

By all means unfriend somebody if you don't feel happy about the way they enter competitions on Facebook, or unfollow or block them  on Twitter, but just do it quietly with no fuss and then forget all about them. Comping is a hobby, and something we do for pleasure. If somebody's behaviour is making it less of a pleasure for you, simply shut them out of your life!

Win a £100 Zulily voucher and a car seat using Instagram

One of the newest ways to enter competitions is Instagram. If you've ever felt you'd like to enter your photos into competitions but were put off by the thought that other entrants might be professional photographers with expensive equipment, Instagram is the answer, because every entrant is armed just with their phone and their imagination.

Zulily is a great site where you can snap up some real bargains in stylish childrenswear, and they are running an Instagram competition during October, with a prize of £100 to spend on the site and a super car seat suitable for ages 9 months to 12 years.

Before you enter, you will need to make sure you have Instagram on your phone or tablet - you can download it from the App store or Google Play. Then dress your child up in their warmest winter clothes, take them out to enjoy the autumn days and get snapping!

Full entry details are here http://zulilyuk.tumblr.com/post/32661119321/zulily-cuties-out-n-about-instagram-competition but this is what you need to do- make sure you complete all the steps and include ALL the hashtags to make sure they see your entry:

1. Upload an Instagram snap of your little one showing your cutie Out n’About in October.
2. Make sure your profile is public, so that they can see your photo.
3. You need to follow zulilyUK on Instagram (@zulilyUK) and tag your picture with three things:

• #zulilyUKOctoberCutiesCompetition
• @zulilyUK
• and either: #zulilynewbie (if you’re new to zulily) or #zulilian (if you’ve already joined zulily). 

The competition closes on October 31st - and don't forget to check the comments you receive on Instagram, because that is how they will be notifying the winner.

How to win competitions - part 1. Finding competitions

When I write on this blog, I often assume the people reading are already compers. But recently there have been several newspaper articles and at least two radio interviews (I know there have been at least two, because two of them featured me!) about the hobby, so you may be reading the blog for the very first time after hearing about successful winners. From now on, I will include regular articles for absolute beginners too, Do feel free to ask questions, either as a blog post comment or by email to my Grape Vine address.

So, how do you go about joining those successful winners. "I never win anything" - I hear that time and time again from non-compers - but how often do you actually enter anything? The most important rule of comping is

THE ONLY COMPETITION YOU CAN BE CERTAIN OF NOT WINNING IS THE ONE YOU DIDN'T ENTER

Another thing I hear over and over again is "How do you find so many competitions to enter?" Well, I only enter a tiny fraction of the competitions there are out there. There are tens of thousands of competitions on the go at any one time - here are some of the places you will find then

• on product packs
• on leaflets, posters and display stands in supermarkets, car sales rooms, small shops, banks, garden centres, DIY shops, craft superstores, pet stores, fashion stores, pubs, restaurants, works canteens - almost any retail, catering or banking outlet
• on book jackets
• in local and  national newspapers
• in magazines, whether big glossy ones or small circulation specialist ones
• on websites
• on Facebook
• on Twitter
• on Pinterest
• on your TV screen
• on apps such as Instagram, Foursquare and Blippar

Once you start to look out for them, you will soon realise they are everywhere - you just need to tune your eyes into spotting the word "WIN" (and I don't mean when it appears in tWIN pack or WINdow cleaner)

But what if you don't have time to search the High Street and the Internet for competitions? Well, luckily there are lots of services that will do it for you, telling you which products, shops and websites are currently running competitions and, if you need to buy something, telling you exactly what you need so that you don't waste money on buying the wrong thing.

For the competitions you might look for away from the Internet, why not try my very own comping magazine, The Competition Grape Vine ? It is a handy pocket sized magazine packed with news, views, tips and clues - I spend many hours each month searching for competitions so that you will know exactly where to find them, and I go to a lot of trouble to find unusual and hard-to-find ones that will potentially have fewer entries and give you a better chance. The website will tell you how to apply for a free sample copy.

If you prefer a more traditional style of magazine with features and  photos, you might prefer Compers News. Although I have no connection with the production of this magazine, I write a monthly column giving advice and help, along with my great friend and fellow comper Pam Crampton.

Both the above magazines have a subscription charge, as they don't carry lots of advertising and need to pay for the costs of research and production time, postage and printing, as well as being a full time job for the people who produce them. (I'd love to be able to offer my services for free, but until I hit the lottery jackpot that won't be possible!) However if you follow the advice in them, you should recoup your subscription many times over. In fact you may save more than the price of the magazine in petrol and parking charges, as it saves you from visiting so many different shops!

However if you are really short of cash, or want to stick to online comping, you can get lots of information for free. Online comping sites and forums are free for various reasons. Some have their costs covered by income from the adverts they show and affiliate links that take you to some of the competitions you enter, others are hosted on free sites such as forums and all the listings are added by the users, people like you who have found a competition and are happy to share it. Here are some you might like to try. My advice is to try several, then find the one you like best and  stick to it. Trying to work through them all and  remember what you have entered to avoid duplication would be very confusing - as well  as taking far more hours  than there are in a day!

Loquax
The Prize Finder
UK Competitions
UK Wins
Competitions List
Competition Hunter  
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/uk.rec.competitions
Moneysaving Expert
Hot UK Deals
Frugaller Forum

There are many more out there - dozens of them, but there are plenty here for you to find one you are comfortable with and enjoy using.

Have fun and good luck! Oh, and do come along and say hello to me on Facebook  and Twitter 
 where I share (and enter!) lots of competitions