The Comping Fairy

Every year, in late December, a mysterious person leaves wrapped gifts, causing much excitement.
It is something I look forward to every year. 

I'll let you in on a secret. That person is me! - and Master Chief,

I subscribe to Compers News and read an article about somebody who does extra gifts at Christmas from gifts they had won.  I thought this was a lovely idea and this year we had our first ever visit from the Comping Fairy.  Mr Chief had done quite well, but comps my son has won throughout the year have either gone straight to him or I dig them out in the looooong summer holidays. As a result he was going to end up with fewer than anyone else.  As he had the least I let him help wrap (except his obviously!)

I was going to have the Comping Fairy visit between Christmas and New Year, in that lull when nobody really knows what day it is (a full debate this morning between MrC and me this morning trying to decide whether it was in fact Tuesday or Wednesday!)
I didn't want my wins though to push out the gifts that people have thought long and hard about and spent good money on, so in the end the Comping Fairy visited on Christmas Eve.

We wrapped MasterC in tinsel and handed out the bags of gifts.  It really was great fun and something we hope to do next year.

 

(to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas) On this 2015 Christmas Eve, the Comping Fairy brought to meeeee (you see why I don't do slogans!!)

MrC
* a mug
* a corkcicle wine cooler
* a picnic blanket
* a signed England shirt

MasterC
* a football
* a Rugby World Cup rugby ball;


MissC
* a Tractor Ted DVD and book
* Lego Friends



MrsC
* a selfie stick - hope to use this for all those selfie comps!
* a rubber stamp for papercrafting
* a couple of scratchcards

It was such a fun afternoon.  I very much hope that we get a similar visit next year!

Kids Colouring Comps

This blogger has been well and truly absent of late.  Life has just kind of got in the way of everything I suppose, and blogging and sadly comping have fallen slightly by the wayside.

I have been a comper for years.  I have early memories of winning comps as a child after sending a postcard off to Shout magazine or teletext and reaping the rewards.  Comping is a way of life for me.  You often hear seasoned compers talking about the "good old days" I truly believe that comping is and should be an evolving hobby.  I don't get a good return from the humble postcard these days, but it wont stop me from trying.  There is something I love about writing them out and posting them but  I'm always looking for new ways to comp.  Maybe postcards from kids magazines still have good odds of a win, but I doubt there are as many now.  I know I can't resist posting one off on behalf of my son or daughter, but often now its email entry, which of course reduce your odds.  As a very young child I remember my sister winning a calculator from Cadburys.  I was hugely jealous, but vividly remember her saying that all she did was some colouring in.

My son started school this September (one reason for the absence) and it has been a long term.  He has taken to it really well, but in the afternoons he comes home tired, he just wants to veg on the sofa and watch TV.  He would honestly have it on until bed time if he got his way!  I started looking for activity sheets and books for him to do when he got home, stickers etc which have gone down a treat, but then realised I had missed a trick.  I have started searching for kids colouring competitions.  At the moment he still sees them as a treat (woohoo!!) and am ever hopeful that he will be rewarded for his efforts - hopefully something even more exciting than that calculator!
The one he has been working on today is this one from Nisa Locally , but when I have gone to look for more tonight they are seriously lacking. It's 5 weeks until Christmas, where are all the colouring competitions?

Have I missed the boat? Am I looking too early? Are they just not the favoured comps by promotors these days? I don't know, but I really don't want to have to go buying colouring books, where's the fun in that!

I will continue to hunt and will post any I find, in the mean time, if anyone has any fun ones to share Master Chief and I will be ever grateful - and who knows, if we win, we may just share that prize winning selection box with you.

Saying thank you {to the right people}

A bit of excitement hit our house on Thursday.

I enter competitions on behalf of my son.  I don't know a comper who hasn't, but it looks as if this may be stopping soon.  If I buy Master Chief a comic and see a comp in there, I complete the form or postcard and send it off.  We have had relative success, a couple of wins (little does he know that his favourite christmas present from the big man in the red suit a couple of years ago or the entire contents of his stocking this year were his wins).  Now it seems my little man has caught the comping bug for himself!

A few weeks ago I entered a comp in his name.  Filled in all of his details, pressed submit.  A week or so later a LWE (long white envelope, normally a letter in the post telling you of a win) arrived, complete with a family ticket for a local musuem.  I was chuffed to bits, resealed the envelope for him to find when he got back from pre-school.  For days, all he would talk about was his competition win (my first ever competition win ever mummy)  *mummy feeling increasingly guilty about his previous wins that I have squirreled away.
On the plus side though he kept saying he wanted to enter another competition.  I seem to have bred a mini comper!  After a bit of googling and a look at Super Lucky Di's blog I found a couple of drawing comps for him to do. Sent them off, tried to think no more of them (mummy, do you think the man or lady will like my drawing? mummy, do you think I will win my second competition?).  One of the last comps we entered in our mini crafty comp-a-thon was from a local magazine, which contained a couple of puzzles.  I was sitting on the sofa, trying to quickly jot down the answers.  It was 3.30pm, the post goes from our local box at 4pm, of course Master Chief wants to help.  I tried to discourage him in the interests of doing it quickly as I had less than 30 minutes to find the answer write it down and get it in the postbox, before I remembered that completing the puzzle is meant to be half the fun, and anyway I was a bit stuck (!)  Master Chief peered over my shoulder, in a matter of seconds announced which was the odd one out and why and wandered off to do some more drawing, meanwhile I, slightly flabbergasted, quickly shoved it in an enveloped, plonked a first class stamp on it and whizzed children and envelopes to the end of the road to the postbox.

Back to Thursday,  a week later the door bell rang, I gladly accept parcel from delivery chap and notice my son's name on it, not mine.  I then noticed where it had come from, take it up to my son, very excited.

Normally I would have opened it myself in secret, hidden it away for a special treat, for Christmas or the school holidays, the proverbial or literal rainy day, except I had had those questions, I had genuinely considered posting him a "runners up prize" to keep his interest up.  This, coupled with the fact he had done the puzzle, it only seemed right to let him open it.

But, back to the point of my post.  I always try to say thank you for a prize.  Not only is it good manners, but I think it is important that they know a prize has turned up, how else can we expect promoters to follow up when this go wrong if we don't tell them when things go right.  How many times a day do I hear myself or my friends saying "what do you say?" to our children.  Now, occasionally prizes do turn up unannounced , you may not know where it has come from.  This can often happen with runner up prizes in my experience.  I remember this comp, I googled the publication, found an email address, wrote a gushing email as I was so impressed.  We literally posted the entry on the Thursday, the following Thursday the prize had arrived.  The next day doing the school drop off I see the publication on the side with all the other bits for the parents to take and realise I emailed the wrong publication.  I didn't get an email back and have visions of emails pinging around the wrong organisation trying to work out who on earth signed off this mystery competition.

So a huge thank you will be going to the right organisation, with his renewed enthusiasm for drawing and colouring Master Chief is writing a proper thank you card with pictures anyway.  So yes, it is important to say thank you, but only worthwhile if its to the right people!

I am intrigued about what other people do to manage expectations with their childrens' comping?  I would love to hear your tips.

Welcome!

Hello, welcome to my corner of the www.  Now, I am by no means a great blogger, invariably I forget, but I love comping and I want to talk about it. I want to encourage other people to try it too!

My friends think I'm really lucky, I'm not, I just enter more competitions than they do. People see me win and they want to win too, great! They enter one or two and get bored. When I get bored I have a break, find some different types of comps, do something different. Other people stop entering, then wonder why they don't win.

Comping is my hobby, it is not a chore. I'm not a prolific winner, I'm chuffed to bits if I win a competition a month. I'm selective over the types of competition I enter, I only enter competitions I would like to win and rarely enter internet competitions as I get bored too easily.

I want to use this space to celebrate my wins, share competitions, share and try ideas for different types of competitions and hopefully in time, host a few of my own!!

I hope you can join me on my journey.