[AGA-Contest] Fun Historical Data on Contest Prizes

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

On Wed, 25 May 2005, Phil Edwards wrote:

> My only other concern is getting the prizes to people.  I've 
> never done this kind of thing before.  Should we have the items shipped to 
> one receiver who then sends them to the recipients (at a possibly huge 
> international freight rate) or would it work to have someone call the 
> donators with the recipient's info and have them ship it?  I'd prefer the 
> latter, but how keen do you think the donors would be with that?

We have actually attempted all this, once, the first year.  And we did 
"both" methods.  Unfortunately, both methods were a complete disaster. 
The person who collected all the prizes from the manufacturers had a 
series of unfortunate events, which he has never properly explained but 
which involved a mentally unstable relative, that culminated in a fire in 
his apartment and the prizes being held as police evidence.  I learned 
much later that no prizes had been sent to the winners!  Thankfully, none 
of the winners ever complained.

Actually, the only winner who ever complained that year was the grand 
prize winner, one Frode Roe.  And it was his prize, a 72-gallon bowfront, 
that got passed on to me to handle, and ironically was the only one 
actually delivered.  In this case, All-Glass arranged to have the prize 
delivered to the winner's nearest all-glass retailer, with the caveat that 
it was in the US.  Frode, being outside of the US, did not qualify, so he 
authorized us (me) to sell the tank on E-Bay and send him the money in 
cash.  So I did this, nearly 6 months after the contest and when James had 
gone AWOL.  The auction brought in more money than the tank cost retail, 
and with a few bits of wrassling with the All-Glass rep, the tank made it 
to its happy owner.  I sent off a check drawn on a foreign bank for Frode. 
Nothing.  He never got it.  Kept bugging me every month "where's my 
money?"  Nothing.  Eventually Kathy got in touch with our bank, we stopped 
payment on the check (at a hefty fee) and David Lass (treasurer at the 
time) either wired the money or sent him a replacement (can never 
remember).  It took OVER A YEAR to get this settled, and I swore I'd never 
do it again.

I have had good luck with more reliable people receiving the prizes (i.e., 
me and the convention organizer du year) and sending them with the 
ribbons.  I've had good luck by not having too many prizes.  And I've had 
good luck by subbing different prizes based on whether the winner is in 
the US or not.  So I'd be careful about tying the ACTUAL prize to a 
particular category...

  - Erik

--
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com
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