| | Below is a list of UK competitions whose prizes are awarded to the most skillful entrants (skill comps). With practice you can improve your skills in slogan competitions and the like, but there is nothing you can do to make
yourself luckier - hence my dislike of draws. Draws are for the slave to fortune - and that goes double for Internet draws where you have no envelopes on which to deploy lurid inks, pathetic pleas or salacious drawings in an effort to stand out from the crowd. I’ve won a veritable warehouseful of prizes plus the 7 cars, and I’ve sweated for every one. If I’d wasted my time on draws, this site would be devoted to the story of how I won a T-shirt and a voucher for £50 off my next
world cruise. Of course, if you’re prepared to enter draws by the thousand, you can narrow the odds a bit, but your time would be better spent developing skills with slogan and other tiebreaker competitions (see Be a Winner).
Mind you, I don’t recommend that you become obsessed with competitions in the way I have in the past, nor should you employ the sort of extreme (and often dishonest) tactics used by the compers in my novel. Keep comping as a hobby. But when you do it, do it like a
competitions pro rather than a dabbler.
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| | UK Slogan & Other Competitions | |
| | Swizzels Sweets Competition.
Prize: £100 in Toys R Us vouchers.
Closing: Monthly.
Task: Regsiter and take the Sweet Factory Challenge.
I include this one for reasons of nostalgia. My grandfather used to live in New Mills not far from the Swizzels factory, and when I visited him as a child I could smell the exotic aromas of the sweets cooking in the vats. When Granddad saw the faraway look in my eye he said I must be thinking great thoughts, and he was right: I was thinking about Fruit Fizzers. If you come up with a wonderful new sweet, you will be doing a service to ... well, if not man
kind, then at least boy and girl kind.
Website: www.swizzels-matlow.com |
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| | Cutest Pet Contest. This
competition comes from the International Pet Owners Club in the USA. It is open worldwide. Any kind of pet is eligible, they say. I can rememeber the days when pet rocks were all the rage. I wonder what the contest judges would make of a picture of one of those? Or a cyber pet? Entry is free, but you can only send in one entry every eight months.
Closing: At regular intervals.
Prize: $1,000.
Task: Take a photograph of your cute pet.
Comp Page: Click Here. |
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| | | But first a word from our sponsor. Hi. I’m Michael Shenton, creator of this website and author of
Stiff Competition, the comping story that won the Peter Pook Humorous Novel Competition. People who are looking for me through search engines can
remember just about everything about the website save its name and, more distressingly for me, my name. They search for ‘Peter Pook author’, ’the man who wrote Peter Pook’, that bloke who won the cars’ and all manner of other odd things, but never
‘Michael Shenton’. The sole purpose of this site is to get my name known in the hope that one day dozens of people will buy my current novel and any others I manage to get published. So would you all kindly make a note of it. Michael Shenton. Thank you. |
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| | Staples Boxed Office Competition.
Closing: Monthly.
Prize
: A boxed office containing a laptop computer, printer and other items.
Task: Imagine you could be a piece of office equipment, then say in up to 20 words what you would be and why.
Website: Click Here
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| | Company Magazine ‘I Love You’ Competition.
Closing: Unknown.
Prize: Up to £1,000 to spend on telling your loved one how you feeling in the most flamboyant way possible.
Task
: Say how you would like to say ‘I love you.’
Comp Page: Click Here. |
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| | Vileda Supermocio Competition.
Closing: 31.7.10.
Prize: £1,000.
Task: Say why you love the new Supermocio 3Action mop.
Comp Page: Click Here. |
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| | Great British Life Vintage Champagne Competition.
Closing: 14.8.10.
Prize
: £1,500 of vintage champagne.
Task: Say why you, or someone you know, deserves to win.
Comp Page: Click Here
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| | Nivia Holiday Competition.
Closing: 16.8.10.
Prize: A 7-night holiday for two to Morocco.
Task: Say in up to 100 words who you would bring with you if you won the prize, and why they
deserve the holiday.
Comp Page: Click Here. |
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| | Paul Mitchell Hollywood Competition
.
Closing: 29.10.10.
Prizes: 1st - A trip to Hollywood and the Angus M Salon. Runners-up - various prizes.
Task: Say what inspires your style.
Comp Page: Click Here. |
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| | Susman’s Caption Competition.
Closing: 30.10.10.
Prize
: A case of wine.
Task: Supplky a caption for the picture.
Comp Page: Click Here. |
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| | Persil Family Adventure Competition.
Closing: 22.12.10.
Prize: A family weekend adventure at Alton Towers with overnight accommodation.
Task: Say in up to 50 words which Alton Towers attraction you would most like to have a go on this summer.
Comp
Page: Click Here. |
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| | Yzen Caption Competition. This
is a simple monthly comp you might like to take a shot at now and again, just to help sharpen your wit.
Closing: End of each month.
Prize: A bottle of bubbly.
Task: Supply a caption for the picture (changes each month).
Comp Page: Click Here. |
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| | | | Special Offer:
Ink Club is offering a free compatible ink cartridge for Epson or Canon printers (P&P not free), plus big savings on all cartridges, original and compatible. |
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You can find more comps on the sites listed on Comps Links
. Most will be draws, but keep digging and you should unearth a few skillcomps. Remember: the harder they are to find, the fewer entries there will be. |
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| | | Note:
In slogan comps with a word limit, there is some disagreement over how to count contractions such as ‘can’t’. Some say they count as one word, others that they count as two. Logically, when two words have been glued together you then have only one word, but logic doesn’t always come into it as comps are often run by women. Therefore you might like to err on the safe side.
[Joke Alert: Only kidding about women, ladies. Please don’t send me
any more severed horses’ heads - there’s no room left in my freezer.] |
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