![]() You’ve already started doing some of that, but I’m guessing administration is difficult unless you’ve got it at least semi-automated. To avoid rewarding folks who only come aboard for the freebies, you could weight the active members over the others. Up front, you could state that the winners would have to pay a nominal/actual postage fee. (You even could raise a glass for every package completed, and then you wouldn’t even care how much time/effort is being spent. This way all your local friends could join in the fun of wrapping and packaging. You could package and send all the prizes in one swell foop (sic) via a mailing party held at an Irish pub (great advertising for them) or at your or a friend’s place. (The latter used to be nicely found on your home page, but now seems to be shyly hiding since the reformat.) Maybe a little, non-obnoxious thermometer on your home page showing your current deficit, with a link to your “how to donate” page. I was sure surprised that you were out $100, and I also have no idea what your hosting costs are. Geno’s idea of posting a tally of postage (and even web hosting) costs makes sense, too. The latter would allow you to better track that each prize actually is shipped to each winner. I like Anne Roos’ idea about those who donate a prize doing the shipping, or maybe even including funds for shipping (and your time) along with the donation. I definitely subscribe to the practice that the more you give away, the more you get back. I’m saying that because the Santa Claus in me knows how much pleasure both the giver and receiver enjoy. I’d hate to see all this give-away fun end, especially at Christmas! I’m not just saying that as a past winner. The PROs definitely outweigh the CONs, IMHO, and your enthusiasm for this is very evident in the wording of your posting. View Holiday Giveaway Map in a larger map Categories Headlines Tags contest, free stuff, freebies, giveaway ![]() If you move around the map, you can see the winners from outside North America. Just for fun, here’s a look at all the places we sent gifts last year. Truth be told… we’d LOVE to give away something every single day… we kind of learned how Oprah feels on her Favorite Things episode… but do you feel it adds or subtracts to the Irish Fireside? Your input will influence how we handle this giveaway and giveaways in the future. Please take a moment to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below. Some giveaway items were a bit of a stretch on the Irish travel and Irish interest front.A large number of people who entered only signed up for freebies and not to interact with our community.Makers of Irish-oriented gifts had a chance to introduce their products to a new audience.A handful of people who found us through the giveaway are now regularly active in our online community.Below you will see some of the pros and cons we came up with. We’re curious to hear your thoughts and suggestions on the topic. Now, we’ve got to decide if we have the time and money to do this again… and both resources are very tight this year. There’s no way we could have done it without the help of those contributors! Fortunately, some loyal fans came through and donated enough money that our out-of-pocket cost for postage was about $100. We spent about five hours a week working on the daily giveaways and postage costs really added up. Here’s the problem, last year’s giveaway took up a huge amount of time and cost us a chunk of change. I must say, it was quite an exciting time. Last year, we gave away well over 100 Irish and Ireland-related items to over 90 people in six countries. The holidays are fast-approaching, and we’ve got to decide if we should run our Irish Fireside Holiday Giveaway again this year. We’ve got a dilemma here at the Irish Fireside. ![]() ![]() Gifts in green opaque boxes with pink bows, originally uploaded by. ![]()
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