Pimp your Print to win with Brabantia

Brabantia are looking for new designs for their global canister range, and the winning designer will  win a trip to the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan. Runners up will get their designs printed on a set of bespoke, one-off canisters.

The competition is open to professional designers as well as the general public, but only non-designers can be considered for the "People's Choice Awards" where a  short list of entries will go forward to a Facebook vote and the five most popular designs will win their designers an set of canisters with their design on it.

Read all about the competition and submit your entry, by October 22nd, here.

September's Right Venues competition

The September prize at Right Venues is a one night dinner, bed and breakfast stay at The Old Swan and Minster Mill in the Cotswolds.

I've stayed and eaten at this beautiful hotel and can thoroughly recommend it - in fact I'm not sure why I'm sharing this with you, I'd love to win the prize myself. It has a perfect balance of old fashioned charm and bang up to date comfort, the service is outstanding and the food is excellent.

Enter on the competition page, writing "none" in the Company Name and Job Title fields if necessary. They are very happy to accept your entry even if you don't represent a company.

Closing September 30th.

A VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT

As many of you know, over recent months I have had a series  of health problems, which, among other factors, have led me to decide I can no longer continue to produce  Grape Vine.  

However I didn't want to leave  all my subscribers in the lurch with no comping magazine, so I have arranged that Grape Vine will merge  with the excellent Compers  News.  It will already be familiar to many of you, and you may already know that, along with Pam Crampton, I write a monthly column in it, so you'll still be seeing me every month!

Editor Steve Middleton is, like me, an experienced and successful comper who cares about the compers who subscribe to Compers News. Like me, he likes to look  out for potential low entry comps and  point out the occasional pitfalls,  so I'm sure Compers  News will help you to keep up your comping success rate. And as well as comp listings, you will find regular articles and features as well as in-house competitions to enter, and  get access to the  popular forum Chatterbox. 

Compers News will be in touch with subscribers shortly to confirm the  details of  your transferred subscription - rest assured that no-one will  lose out  and anyone who  really does not want to give the new merged magazine a try will be able to have the balance of  their subscription  refunded.  

The closing date  for our  annual winners list competition will still be December 31st, although the 6 month sub  part of the prize will be  replaced  by a £25.00 cheque, and all those who  were current subscribers on August 31st  will be in the draw, but from now on the  monthly lists will be  posted here on the blog. The blog will carry on as it always has done, so those of you who are NOT Grape Vine subscribers will notice no difference, apart from the removal of the monthly competition which had a Grape Vine sub as a prize. I hope to be able to bring you other competitions with exciting prizes over the next few months though!

 

The PO Box address will still be active until January 31st,  but  please do  NOT send any subs or  renewals to that address, or make  any cheques  or PayPal payments out to me, as I will have to return  them to you. 

I would like  to  thank you all  for your  support over the years  I have been producing Grape  Vine, especially my  team  of "elves"  Pam Crampton,  Karen  Bond, Sharon  Buchalter  and Kevin Francis, without whom  you would probably have gone  GV-less several times over the last  year.  Also Jenni Bower-Tebbs who has  provided regular packs of entry forms, Marina Chappell who has advertised Grape Vine on her website and to the many readers who have helped me to find elusive  entry forms and answers  and have helped to make  sure each issue was  packed with  as many  comps as  possible.  

Now I’d like to hand over to Steve, who will introduce himself to those of you who don’t already know him.

Steve says:

As Jane says, my name will already be familiar to many of you reading this so I’ll keep it short.  But over the years that both Jane and I have been comping, our ‘careers’ have been very similar.  We both started comping in earnest at around the same time, and it’s interesting to note the number of times that we both had letters printed in the same issue of the old Competitors’ Journal back in the 70s and 80s. We even started producing our respective comping magazines at a similar point in the mid-noughties.  I also know that our approach to putting our magazines together each month is exactly the same, and that involves personally making the effort to get out to shops and supermarkets most days to see what’s out there.  So, for those of you who don’t already know about Compers News, you’ll hopefully find the same standard of accurate, first-hand comping info that you’ve come to expect from Jane and Grape Vine.

Of course, some things will be different and might take some getting used to, but I’m always genuinely happy to receive your comments and suggestions so do please get in touch.  As Jane has mentioned, you’ll continue to see her name in CN each month – and I’m sure that she’ll keep me on my toes! – so this merger really is an exciting opportunity.

I’m honoured that Jane thought of me and Compers News when she made what I know was a difficult decision to stop producing Grape Vine, and I’ll try my best to live up to her high standards.  Hopefully now, she’ll be able to spend more time on her own comping again… which will doubtless mean fewer prizes for the rest of us, but I’m sure you’ll all agree that it’s the very least she deserves.  Thank you Jane!

 

Win 7 days' European Car Hire

Economy Car Hire are giving away a week's economy car hire in Europe in a fun competition.  To enter, you need to visit their blog and read the story formed by the comments, then add what you think the next sentence should be.

Don't worry if you aren't a great literary mastermind, the winner will be drawn, but you can have some fun deciding where you want the story to go! The closing date is September 30th.

Win a stylish electric fire

Gr8 fires have another lovely fire to give away - this time it's an electric one, but with the appearance of living flames. How things have changed since those 1960s style "Living flame" electric fires with the plastic coals and a light bulb underneath, with a disc that turned round to make flickering patterns on the back of the fireplace. I wonder if anyone was ever convinced by those? Now the effect is totally realistic, but without the mess!

The promotion fits in well with Facebook's new rules - all you have to do is Like this post and you're entered. The closing date is September 20th.

Can I Eat It? Win the app!

The "Can I Eat It?" app is an award winning app for iPhone and iPad which lets you check many thousands of food products available in supermarkets, to see if they are suitable for your special diet or  contain any ingredients you want or need to avoid. It costs £1.99 to download, but they are giving away 20 copies in a Twitter competition.

All you need to do is follow them and retweet this tweet (you can follow from here too)

20 free "Can I Eat It?" iPhone app codes to be won! Just follow us, RT this and pay our blog a visit: http://t.co/FTD8e8fbpU
— Can I Eat It? (@CanIEatIt) August 31, 2013

The competition closes at midnight on September 11th, and you can read more about the competition and the app here.

Win a £700 luxury break in London!

I was very intrigued when I saw this tweet on Twitter

The World's 1st Schedule Tweet to Win Competition; Win A Luxury Break worth over £700 at http://t.co/Ix7Py35Le3 #SCHWEET #Contest #comp #RT
— Schweet Comps (@SchweetComps) August 31, 2013

A "Schedule Tweet to Win"   competition - what a great idea! It means you don't need to be hovering over your computer or phone waiting for a great competition to appear, you can be at work, out shopping, or as I will be in this case, sunning yourself on holiday, while Twitter does the job for you. And it creates an even playing field - those who only get on to Twitter every now and then have the same chance as those who are around all day.

The snag is, you might not know how to schedule a tweet - and if you use the ordinary web version of Twitter, there's no option to schedule one. But there are lots of apps and websites that will help you to do it - I blogged about some of them last July. If you are just wanting to schedule a single Tweet, I recommend Future Tweets - it is very, very easy to use and all you need to do is authorise it to use your Twitter account. Nothing to download or install! But if you decide to  start scheduling tweets regularly, Tweet Deck and Hoot Suite are fantastic tools.

Now  I've reminded you how to schedule a tweet, let's move on to the competition - and what a fantastic prize. Clear your diary for October 5th and 6th, because that's when you could be enjoying it.

Win a luxury break in London – worth over £700 – just by sending a tweet!

 Enter this unique twitter competition for your chance to win an all expenses paid meal at French restaurant Dans Le Noir? followed by a luxury nights stay at the St Pancras Renaissance hotel in London.

 To celebrate the launch of Manchester songstress Kristyna Myles’ new single, The Paris Match, on Monday 9th September, she has launched an amazing twitter competition.

Kristyna has teamed up with restaurant Dans Le Noir? and the St Pancras Renaissance hotel to offer one lucky winner and a guest the chance to experience a night of pure luxury in London.

Imagine you are the winner, you’ll get to arrive and unwind at The St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, where you will be welcomed with afternoon canapés, before heading over to one of London’s most unique dining experiences; Dans Le Noir?, where you will experience their famous surprise menu and a selection of fine wines all served in the dark!

 

After opening your mind to an intriguing new world of mystery and sensation at Dans Le Noir?, you will get to stay in one of the Chambers Club Room, one of the larger rooms in the original, Victorian part of London’s most iconic hotel.

Then, after a sumptuous breakfast, you can treat yourself to a morning of spa therapy. Making the most of the pool, steam room and sauna before heading on your way after what will surely be one of the most luxurious weekends of your life!

This incredible experience could be yours by simply sending a tweet.  So don’t miss out and enter the competition now!

For your chance to win...simply spread the word about Kristyna’s single release by sending the following tweet between 10.00am and 10.05am on Monday 9^th September*:

The absolutely stunning cover of The Paris Match by @kristynamyles is out today! Download http://kmyl.es/PAR1S #TAKENOTE

Entrants must also follow the lovely people making this competition worth entering; @kristynamyles @StPancrasRen and @DansLeNoirLDN.

So, for less than 5 minutes of your time you could win a memory that will last forever.

 For more information on how to enter and the full T&C  visit http://www.kristynamyles.com/the-paris-match 

  

Cheat Sheet

1. Follow
All entrants must follow @kristynamyles, @StPancrasRen and @DansLeNoirLDN, simply click the links below to quickly follow us all:

Follow @kristynamyles

Follow @stpancrasren

Follow @DansLeNoirLDN

2. Tweet

Entrants must schedule or tweet the following tweet between 10am & 10.05am BST on Monday 9^th September.

The absolutely stunning cover of The Paris Match by @kristynamyles is out today! Download http://kmyl.es/PAR1S #TAKENOTE

 

If you have a twitter app that can schedule tweets; simply copy the tweet above and paste it into your twitter app and schedule for 10am (BST) on Monday 9th September.
If you can’t schedule tweets, either download a FREE app that can and follow the steps above, or copy and save the tweet above as a draft and make sure you set an alarm so you can tweet it at 10am (BST) on Monday 9th September.