Hello, Competition Hunters! Thankfully, unlike last year, there’s no snow to be dashing through so at least Chris Rea certainly won’t be battling with snowploughs or diversions this year and should get home in plenty of time.
I’ve been rather lax on entering competitions this festive season because my dad broke his hip last Monday – keeping me closer to home than I would usually be. It seems my comping has gone the same way!
Compers frequently dismiss home-based local competitions during the festive period. Time is of the essence, and hunting local comps down takes a long time for even the most diehard of Competition Hunters – but if you aren’t winning these bigger competitions, then the answer might be in your own warm hearth!
Shopping Centres
If you live near to a shopping centre, the chances are that they are running a competition. The Shopping Centre Magazine can be a great resource – read it during a coffee pit stop and you could pick up a prize! The main shops take out adverts and may alert you to their individual competition, and the magazine will sometimes run a centre-specific competition to win vouchers for their businesses.
Local Papers
There are always competitions in your local papers, but even more so at Christmas – Your local chamber of commerce will probably be running a business idea one, and there’s always the local health club trying to entice you to join a mailing list after entering a New Years Resolution fitness regime!
Local Businesses
Garden Centres often offer children’s competitions – for some reason, colouring competitions are popular with gardening centres and they always offer some lovely prizes. Local businesses often alert their customers to competitions via social media – a local dressmaker in my area had a lovely competition and the comments were friendlier as well which made for a nicer experience. A favourite competition prize offered by independent hotel groups is an afternoon tea during Christmas and the New Year – so following them on social media might be helpful to you.
Local Attractions
Festive days out with the kids at local museums, castles and leisure centres are always pretty fruitful for children’s competitions. Often parents are quite frazzled and end up losing the entry form, or forgetting to get the form handed in, so take advantage of it! Also, they usually have a Facebook page where you can win the odd photo competition so it’s always worth a ‘Like’.
Do you keep up with local, low entry competitions? Have you won locally? Do you plan to enter local competitions in the New Year? Tell us all about it in the comments!