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.