Thank you.
And tonight, you have won seven saucepans, a weekend away, a luxury fitted kitchen, and tonight's star prize, a brand new Italian sports car!
Terrific prizes, aren't they? But it's not everyone who wants to go on a game show to win something.
So what's the alternative? Do the pools? Enter loads of raffles?
Well, the problem with these is it's very much down to luck whether you scoop the jackpot or not.
But you know, there are some people for whom winning things, be it a foreign holiday, new car, fitted kitchen, or something smaller like a washing machine or stereo, is a way of life.
In fact, everything you see in this room, even the house itself, could be won by entering any of the thousands of consumer competitions that are just waiting for you to enter.
And the winners I'm talking about are not the ones who win one large prize and nothing ever again.
They receive hundreds or thousands of pounds worth of goodies every year, week in, week out.
It doesn't have to take a lot of time, costs very little, and can be enormous fun.
Well, it's a darn sight better to receive a letter of congratulations in the post than what most of us get every week.
I know, I've studied how these prize winners do it and will reveal at the end of this show how well I did in my efforts to become the complete compa.
But whilst we're getting there, let me show you how winning can be a way of life.
And luck, or acting like a dingbat on a game show, has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
You don't believe me, do you? I bet you're sitting there saying, I've never won anything in my life.
But look at it this way, when did you ever enter anything?
I'm not talking about prize draws where it's the first name out of the hat that wins.
No one can do anything about those, and it really is all down to luck.
But although it seems daft to keep saying it, the first rule of becoming the complete compa,
a term I'll use to describe people who regularly enter competitions, is quite simple.
If you're not in, you can't win is a favourite phrase of competition winners around the country, and it makes sense.
You won't be in with a chance of winning prizes if your entry isn't in there.
I soon discovered that sending in the occasional entry form once in a blue moon will get you nowhere.
The regular prize winners are the ones who are organised, not missing a trick when it comes to finding entry forms,
and send in as many as they can every single month, and anyone can join them.
So put your scepticism away at least for the next 20 minutes or so, and I'll take you through step by step how you can join the successful.
The men and women all over Britain who are regular prize winners,
and I'll show you a fun, absorbing, and best of all, lucrative hobby into the bargain.
But let me just whet your appetite a little more before we start.
Someone I know, and she's not unique, won £700 worth of prizes in one month alone.
Okay, nothing really big, but they were still useful things, even more so when you don't have to pay for them.
So what did she win? Well, everything you see here, and I mean everything.
From the kitchen equipment, cameras, food vouchers, books, LPs, CDs and tapes.
So I hope what's going through your mind right now is not, I don't believe it, but actually, where do I start?
Where to start begins with entry forms, and collecting them isn't as difficult as you think.
One of the best places to start is here in the supermarket.
Next time you buy your favourite can of baked beans, take a look at it a little closer.
Every so often, companies will run a consumer competition.
It's a way of making their product more attractive than the one sitting next to it, and it increases its sales.
The product can be anything from a mouthwash, soap, washing powder, frozen food, or canned goods.
You name it, at some stage in its shelf life, every kind of everyday purchase has probably had a competition on it.
Some supermarket chains are better than others at promoting competitions.
Some even occasionally run a consumer competition with a particular manufacturer that's exclusive to that store only.
So it's worth varying the stores in which you shop to see which will provide you with the greatest number of entry forms.
Think of it as being a detective. Challenge yourself to see how many more entry forms you find this time than on your last visit.
Or do the challenge with a friend and partner, and have a go at comping together.
But it's not just the products themselves that feature entry forms.
You'll often find them in the Perspex containers connected to some supermarket shelves.
Always have a good look as you go past. Your shopping trips will take a little longer, but will be worth it in the end.
And don't forget the in-store magazines. They're jam-packed full of competitions, and are essential reading if you're to become the complete comper.
But don't stop at supermarkets. Whenever you go out to buy anything at all, check to see whether it's got a competition on it.
Vary your shopping trips to take in different stores as well as varying the brands you buy, so you can take advantage of as many entry forms as possible in one month.
Remember the golden rule. To be in with a chance of winning, you need to enter as many competitions as you can.
It really is a numbers game. The more entries you send in, the greater your chances of coming up trumps with one or more of them.
Chemists, off-licenses, food stores, pubs, newsagents, garages. That's where I found these.
And there's no conspiracy against you finding them too, you know.
Magazines are a great place to look for competitions.
There's usually one or more in the popular weeklies and monthlies, and occasional ones in the more specialized titles.
The type of competition varies, and we'll be talking about that in more detail in the next section.
Just remember one thing. The bigger the circulation of newspaper or magazine, the greater the number of people entering.
When there's a tie-breaking slogan, great. But so many of them nowadays are first-name out of the hat-type draws.
So bear that in mind before buying ones you wouldn't normally.
That leads me to one word of warning.
Yes, it's terrific to win, and by following the advice on this programme, there's no reason why you shouldn't become a winner too very soon.
But my saying vary your brands does not mean go and buy something much more expensive than you normally do.
Nor does it mean spending twice as much money.
Entering competitions is fun, and while we want to increase your chances of winning, there are no sure-fire guarantees.
Buying 20 bottles of expensive shampoo may seem the ideal way of bringing that dream holiday or car closer.
But there's a little more to it than that, as you'll see in a moment.
Just don't go mad. If you do, you might only end up with a runner's-up prize that costs less than the products you had to buy to win it.
Always take this into consideration, and comping will remain enjoyable and a relatively inexpensive hobby.
Okay, so now we've found our entry forms.
All you have to do is keep them and your till receipts in a safe place and come with me back to base.
If you're anything like me, you'll start off with good intentions.
Perhaps you've already collected some entry forms and plan to go in for competitions when you have the time.
So what do we do? We pop them in a drawer and forget all about them.
As sure as eggs are eggs, we'll only find them when the closing date has passed, so these are only good for the bin, not the actions of the complete compa.
If we're to join the regular prize winners, we need to be much better organised.
But don't worry, it's nothing too complicated. Just take a look at what I've got here.
This is all you're going to need to get you started on that winning trail.
Envelopes and stamps. It's worth keeping plenty of these to hand, especially if you're going to be going in for competitions in a big way.
There's nothing more frustrating than having a brilliant entry ready to be sent off and nothing to put it in.
But you might be wondering about the files and pad.
It's as I was saying earlier, putting entry forms into drawers only to forget about them isn't going to get you anywhere.
Organisation breeds success, so how do we organise ourselves?
We'll start off with a couple of simple cardboard files like these.
And in the first file, you put the current month's entry forms, marking that month clearly on the front cover.
And in the other one, you put the rest.
Of course, if you can run to more than two, half a dozen of these files is ideal.
Simply mark each month clearly on the front and put them all where you can see them day by day.
And we'll be able to lay your hands on them whenever you want.
In fact, it's a good idea to spend a regular day or evening, even if it's just a couple of hours, in which you devote some time to your new hobby.
That way you can get used to regularly looking at your entry forms and making sure you never miss a closing date.
Entry forms like these on products present you with more of a problem, because you're probably still eating what's inside.
If the label can come off, as with this can, then remove it, replacing it with a plain sticky label telling you what it is.
If that's not possible, as with this packet of ice cream, then make a note in your file of the competition closing date and plan to eat the contents a week or two before it's up.
In fact, it's a good idea to tell other members of the family not to throw packets out without checking with you first.
I'll get them to join in comping. That's an even better idea.
The lined pad is your record of what you've entered and when, and you'll see the value of that later.
But did you remember I said, keep your till receipts? Where do they come into the picture?
Well, a large number of competitions nowadays ask you to send a proof of purchase with your entry.
That showed you actually buy the product, particularly when the entry form is separate to it, as with this example.
The proof of purchase could be the cellophane wrapper of a packet of biscuits or a bottle top.
But it's probably also going to be your till receipt and you'll be asked to mark clearly in pen the product in question.
If you keep these with your entry form or any other proofs of purchase asked for in your file,
then you know they're safe and you're meeting all the conditions of the competition.
OK, so now let's look at the different types of competition and the best ways to tackle them.
First, order of merits. These are the competitions that ask you to place certain statements in order of importance.
For example, it may be a kitchen competition and you have to consider six points about kitchen design.
Or the first prize might be a car and you have to decide what it is that attracts people to buy it.
We'll have a look closer at order of merits in a moment, but what other kinds are there?
Well, there's factual questions and these vary from the very easy,
such as matching the musical group to the correct song, as with this example,
to the incredibly difficult, the sort of thing that you need to reach to the encyclopedia for.
Either way, the rule is, check your answers.
Don't just rely on what Uncle Joe tells you.
Always check with a reference book wherever you can.
Wordplay competitions are ones where you're faced with a list of anagrams to sort out, like these.
Or you may be asked to make as many words as you can from an advertising slogan, like this one.
Or even be faced with a grid of letters and somewhere in there, there's a number of hidden words.
Here's an example. With some competitions, you're told what the words are. It's harder when you're not.
Sport the Difference competitions can be fun and are a favourite with children.
The trouble is, some of them are badly reproduced and you'll never know if that splodge in the left-hand corner
is a printer's error or one of the differences.
Of course, there are different types of competitions and the numbers are only limited to the organiser's imagination.
But let's look at those Order of Merits, which even regular compers find difficult to do.
Let's forget the odds for a moment. Suffice it to say that this is one of the most difficult competitions to master.
It all hinges on whether you come up with the same order as the judges.
But there are some tips we can give you which will not only make it clearer what you need to do,
but put you on the road to mastering those Order of Merits completely.
Let's take the kitchen design idea. That's probably because someone I know won herself a £5,000 fitted kitchen
doing this sort of competition from the back of a cereal packet.
Here are our six suggested points about kitchen design.
1. High quality appliances from a well-known manufacturer.
3. Excellent after-sales service.
4. Professionally designed to meet your requirements.
5. Fitted by craftsmen.
And 6. A wide range of styles to choose from.
You might think that doing a competition like this is a stab in the dark,
and if you've only one line to play with, then to a certain extent you're right.
The thing to remember with Order of Merits is that by coming up with more than one proof of purchase,
you get more than one chance.
That's what happened with the competition winner I told you about earlier.
She collected enough tokens on the back of cereal packets to entitle her to six entries altogether.
So how would she have tackled this one?
Well, most dedicated compas follow a system called bankers.
That's where they find their most important factor that goes to the top of their selection every time.
Let's say we go for design on this one, point number four.
After all, it is a kitchen design competition, and that's where dream kitchens start.
So for our six entries, number four goes to the top of the list every time.
Now let's try and look at the other end, the least important factor, the sixth point.
We'll go for after-sales service here, number three.
That's assuming you're going to have problems with your new kitchen.
Yet if it's designed, built and fitted by experts, then it shouldn't be uppermost on your mind.
So number three goes here at the bottom on every line we're entering.
Now we have to lower the odds even further by coming up with the second most important factor.
How about fitted by craftsmen, number five?
Expensive units fitted by cowboys will look terrible,
but even the cheapest of kitchens can look fantastic if they've been put in by a professional.
So number five it is.
So now we've got in place three out of the six points about kitchen design.
And by changing the permutations of the other three, we'll hopefully cut down those odds dramatically.
Of course, it all hinges on whether the three fixed points are in line with what the judges think.
But by applying some common sense and thought, you've got as good a chance as any.
And certainly a far better chance than the compa who changes each line willy-nilly.
Give this one some practice, read the rules carefully,
and always try for as many entries on order of merits as you can.
But don't just take my word for it.
Although at the end of this programme you'll probably wish you had.
Listen to what some of our experts have to say.
What I would like to say to anybody who's taking up competitions for the first time and is unsure about it
is to learn as much about it as you can by reading magazines and other various publications that you can get
and talking to other competitors, perhaps joining a club or a correspondence group,
looking at past results lists and generally filling in the whole background to competitions.
And after that, it's really a question of practice, practice, practice.
And the longer you do it, the better you get.
It's rather like getting into the way of doing something like a crossword puzzle.
The more you do it, the quicker you get at it.
And experience does count for a lot.
My one piece of advice to someone who's contemplating entering competitions for the first time, enjoy it.
It's wonderful fun. It's like icing on the cake.
You never know what the person is going to bring to you.
You never know the phone is going to ring.
You never know who it's going to be and what they're going to say.
I've had two holiday competitions I've been told about over the phone
and the Postman has brought the most wonderful news.
If you're buying something like bars of chocolate, cans of beer,
you get a lot of chances to enter and you get a lot of entries in.
We get far fewer entries for the kind of competitions on leaflets,
particularly those that are in stores, particular stores.
There we may only get two or three thousand entries, maybe even less,
and there are still major prizes to be won.
And of course things can go wrong.
On one occasion I remember we had only three entries for a competition
where five cabriolet cars were offered as prizes.
Those three entrants won cars.
The other two we couldn't give away.
Think positively. There's always another opportunity.
It may well be that your brilliant solution for this particular slogan
didn't work on this occasion but with a little bit of tweaking
might serve its purpose somewhere else again.
Watch word limits.
If it says 12 words or less, it means 12 words or less.
Think about contractions. You can't cheat.
If you say it's a good thing, expect that to be taken as it is.
The judges are perfectly within their rights to say that it is two words.
On the other hand, of course, if you're talking about
mothers being wonderful and an apostrophe is required,
my mother's the greatest mother on earth or whatever it may be,
that's acceptable in grammatical terms and is only one word.
Little things like that can make all the difference.
And just one other thought.
Judges may not be the most intelligent people on God's earth,
but they are intelligent enough to be able to appreciate a pun.
It doesn't have to be written in 14 different colours of Pentel
or in Dayglow or underlined or have little asterisks explaining the joke
at the bottom because that does tend to put us off a little bit.
So think creative, be creative, follow the rules, enter more than once,
enjoy, don't regard it as a gritted teeth exercise. It's fun.
The letter came through the post saying that we had won
and were in a tiebreak situation, four tickets to the Rugby World Cup final.
And what I had to do was choose a World 15 from a list of 26 players,
which I duly did, but unfortunately that wasn't enough to win the competition
at that stage. I had to go forward from there and do a further tiebreaker,
which was to come up with a slogan of more than 15 words as to why I wanted
to go to the Rugby World Cup final at Twickenham.
And I came up with the slogan that I want to go to the Rugby World Cup final
at Twickenham because of the winning players I have seen.
Some wore blue, black or green, but at Twickenham, when I alight,
the winning team will all wear white, which unfortunately didn't come to pass.
But it gave me a lot of encouragement really and I think I'll possibly try
and enter a few more competitions in the future.
I've been entering competitions for about seven years now and I've won every month
apart from two months of those seven years. And it's such good fun.
I love it. It's wonderful. I get together with friends. We share forms.
I go to a club. We put leaflets on the table. We pick up the spare forms
that we want. I go around all the supermarkets I can find.
I buy all sorts of things and various supermarkets, some that I want,
some that I occasionally don't want. And I enter about 30 a month, I suppose.
I do because I find it's an interesting and absorbing dimension to my life,
over and above my normal routine. And it can be profitable too, of course.
I suppose too there's an element of egotism in it as well.
I like to be seen to be clever and smart and witty.
I enter, if I can, about ten competitions a week. It depends what's running.
Some times of the year are busier than others but it averages out about ten.
And out of that I would hope to win about twice a week.
It's built up over the years. I've been comping for about eight years
and it started off with about once a fortnight, then it got to once a week
and then it got to once every four and a half days.
And this year it's running at twice a week which is quite satisfactory.
And I don't think I can probably get much farther but I can perhaps improve
the quality of the prizes as well as the quantity.
And half the fun, of course, is finding the competitions in the first place.
Whenever you go out anywhere, you're always looking.
It doesn't matter if you're in a café, a supermarket, a garage, the airport,
wherever you go, every magazine and paper, you're always looking for new competitions.
And it's a day lost if you come back from a shopping trip without two or three new ones to get stuck into.
And as a family we tend to change our allegiance to whatever we're eating and drinking.
My husband is forced into gulping down all sorts of unheard of beers,
probably changing his favourite beer once a week or being forced to drink whiskey
for a man or something like that that he doesn't really want.
And I change my coffee or my cereal, my tea, my biscuits, my chocolate,
whatever there's a competition on, I will buy in order to have a go at the competition.
For the new competitor, it might be quite a daunting task to seek out entry forms,
but it's not nearly as difficult as it sounds.
Most people are within reach of major outlets of one sort or another,
be they confectioners, be they supermarkets or what have you.
And a browse amongst the shelves, if you're looking, as opposed to just doing your normal shop,
will actually point up a lot of competitions that you might not have noticed
if you were purely and simply following your shopping list.
Added to that, of course, there are a number of publications around,
both from newsstands and by subscriptions,
that contain lists of new promotions as they come up
with information about specific stores that are carrying the forms.
There are also a lot of people who advertise in such publications,
suggesting that they offer an entry form supply service.
From a personal point of view, as a promoter, however,
I would have to say that to a certain extent I frown on the latter
because it must be said that if there are people going around to the supermarket shelves
who are removing all the entry forms so that they can send them out to their subscribers,
it does mean that our poor beginning competitor is less likely to find the material on the shelves.
But certainly I think anybody who wants to start
will be rewarded by a trip around their local supermarket
with plenty of material to get started with.
There are many kinds of competitions, of course, these days.
There are draws where you don't have to buy anything to enter,
and you still can win a big prize, but there's a lot of entries for those.
There are spot the ball competitions.
They've been familiar in the national newspapers for many years.
But I suppose still the most popular sort of competition, the skill competitions,
are those where you may have to answer two or three questions.
They're not normally too difficult.
And then write a slogan or a tiebreak sentence,
and the competition is basically judged on the merit of those sentences.
We always have an independent judge and a panel,
and frankly I've been through thousands of these,
thousands of competitions, thousands of slogans,
and I see the ones that fail time and time again.
They normally fail because they're not specific.
They don't link themselves directly to the product, to the theme of the competition,
to what the person setting the competition is looking for.
If you have an entry that would fit anything from baked beans to beer,
it's not likely to win.
The main thing is to be sharp, terse, to the point, sum it all up in a few words,
and if you can be a little humorous, so much the better.
Judging competitions can be pretty boring,
and if you can make the judges smile, they're on your side.
I enter all sorts of competitions.
I'm not sure which is my favorite.
Order of merit, estimation, spot the ball even,
of course all the slogan competitions,
I do like how many words I can make up out of a certain word.
For example, last week I made over 500 from the word mosquitoes,
and I won a thousand pounds worth of barbecue and garden furniture.
The problem of how to think up a good slogan is something that really is with you all the time,
and however long you do competitions, it is the main stumbling block.
I find it useful to keep my eyes and ears open always,
whenever I go for headlines in newspapers and magazines,
catchphrases or other people's advertising slogans,
you've sort of got an ever-open mind and you're always jotting down ideas,
and I keep a file related to every single subject like cars or makeup or whatever,
it might be sport and sweets and so on,
and when I get a competition related to that, I look at my file for ideas,
and that sparks me off with writing a tyre breaker which is related to that,
and then you try to get a pun incorporated into it and try to write it in rhyme,
and really that's how your inspiration starts off and you work from there.
If you don't know the subject matter, take the trouble to find out,
ring up the library, get a few facts and figures, ask your friends,
and when you've got the finished product, don't be ashamed to show it around the family,
you'll find your worst and your best critics too,
and if you meet a few failures, don't worry about it,
don't take it too seriously, just press on with it,
keep going and sooner or later you'll come up.
A lot of competitors fail because they try to butter up the manufacturer
who's running the competition.
It's no good trying to tell someone that his lager reaches all kinds of parts,
he's used that himself, and if you go on to say that it cures all known ills,
he won't believe it, it's a false product claim.
I'll try and give an example of a kind of thing that could win,
although this is an imaginary one.
Imagine there's a country called Fredonia,
and they're famous for marketing pineapple chunks
that were originally canned by the monks in that country,
and all that information's on the can, and you could win a holiday.
Supposing you sent an entry like,
Where there's freedom to choose and the choice is for chunks,
we go for the brand that is canned by the monks.
Well, you might win with that, providing no one else sends it in,
because the problem is good ideas can come along,
but several other people can enter the same one,
so you're looking for a good idea, sharp and terse,
and one that no one else has thought up for that competition.
As an independent judge who has actually had to cope with anything
up to 150 competition judgeings a year,
one of the things that I find more important than anything else
is to stress to potential competitors
that whilst judges are looking for aptness and originality,
what you feel may be extremely apt and original
may also be something that has occurred to a number of other people,
so don't get disheartened.
By all means, adapt proverbs, paraphrase,
come up with something clever, that's good,
but don't feel that it's an automatic winner,
because it may be that if the competition lends itself,
for example, to something like bare essentials,
if it occurs to you, it occurs to perhaps another 500 people too.
If that's the case, the judges are never going to say that is truly original.
Most of the entries I send off are by post,
always first-class stamps, always long white envelopes,
spread over the months in which the closing date is.
The draws I send off at the beginning of the month with second-class stamps,
but the others, the slogan-type competitions,
they just go off during the month,
closer and closer to the closing date off,
and I'm afraid I send them off a day or two before the closing date,
though I don't think I have as much success with those.
I did win my car in a phoning competition,
but I had to phone in the list of words that I had made
from a supermarket name.
A lot of people enter competitions as a hobby.
They're sometimes termed professionals,
and sometimes they win a lot of prizes.
They're not really professionals.
They're just keen competitors,
and they have as much right to win or as little right to win as anyone else.
So the secret, apart from brushing up your slogan,
brushing up your English and being sharp,
is to enter as many competitions as you can.
At the end of the day, statistically, you stand more chance every time.
Okay, so now you know where to find your entry forms,
have them filed away safely,
know how to recognise the different kinds of competition,
and the best ways to tackle some of the more difficult ones.
Now let's run through the golden rules for successful comping,
the sort of thing you'll need to bear in mind
if you're to become the complete comper.
First, multiple entries.
If these are allowed in the rules, then go for it.
Remember what I said about the numbers game?
Entering more than once gives you more than one chance of winning.
Two, don't go filling in your entry forms
until you're sure your answers are correct
and your tie-breaking slogan, if asked for,
is really what you want to say.
Take time over your entries.
Don't get disqualified by making changes in ink on your only entry form.
Always write down those gems in your notebook first,
and don't forget your name and address.
Three, closing dates. Never miss one.
Keep your file handy and refer to it regularly.
If you can only afford to send off your entries by second-class post,
make sure they go off about a week beforehand.
By first-class post, I'd still allow three or four days
for them to get there safely.
Four, remember it's the name on the entry form
who's entitled to the prize,
so if you want it, make sure it's your name.
I'm sure your Aunt Beryl would be delighted by a cruise down the Nile,
but wouldn't you be kicking yourself if it was your entry
and she didn't want to give it up?
Five, check your answers.
Nay, double-check if it's a really tricky competition.
There's always somebody in the family who thinks they know an answer,
but unless they're brain of Britain,
can you really trust them to be right?
Six, keep at it.
Don't get despondent if your entries don't seem to hit the mark first time.
Enjoy your newfound hobby and be consistent,
and practice your slogan writing.
After all, every writer gets writer's block at some stage.
Seven, remember what I said about the cost of winning.
Don't go and buy very expensive items,
things you wouldn't normally,
in the hope of landing that really big prize.
Keep the cost of your comping simple,
and you'll get so much more pleasure out of it.
Eight, remember your notebook.
There's nothing more frustrating
than getting a letter of congratulations
and not being able to remember how you won.
If your slogans are gems that took you a long time to write,
then it makes sense to keep a note of them
and refer to them from time to time.
You never know, they may give you inspiration
for another win in the future.
Nine, don't forget your qualifiers,
things like pill receipts, bottle tops, labels,
whatever the competition asks for.
After all, it would be a shame to miss out on a prize
because you forgot to enclose something or other.
And finally, ten,
and perhaps the most important advice I can give you
about tie-breaking slogans.
They're the sentences to be completed in ten words or whatever
that help the judges decide who wins
in the event that a lot of people get the first part right.
Getting a chance to see what actually won
will give you a better idea of what to write in the future.
Remember, the first thought you think of
when you come to sit down to write a slogan
is probably also the first thought of thousands of other entries.
So try to be original.
And there are some books that can help you.
There are also comping clubs you can join.
And you can see their advertisements
in the press or specialist comping magazines.
So have a word with your news agent
to see if he can get you a copy.
And see if your adult education classes are enlightened enough
to include comping amongst their syllabus,
because there's a lot of mileage to be gained
from listening to other people's ideas
when it comes to writing slogans.
So let's look at the main points again,
the things we need to take into consideration
if we're to become consistent competition winners.
Enter.
You'll only ever be in with a chance of winning
if you send your entries off,
and that means being organized.
Use the filing system described to you earlier,
and you'll never find old entry forms in drawers again.
Think about what you're doing.
Read the rules and exactly what is required
by the competition organizers before you put pen to paper.
And think carefully about the answers.
Use your local library's reference section
and make those little grey cells work for you.
And when trying to think up a prize-winning slogan,
be original.
Don't just put down the first thing that comes into your head.
Most competitions will give you a month or more to work on them.
Use that time to come up with something
that's really going to catch the judges' eyes,
not something they've seen a thousand times before.
Deadlines. Never miss one.
That wonderful trip to the Far East
or super speedy sports car will have gone forever
if your entry turns up after the closing date has passed.
But if I was to give you one word
that encompasses everything I've said
about being the complete compa,
it would be enjoy.
Enjoy your hobby and that will come through on your entries.
And if you don't win first off, better luck next time.
I'm the sort of journalist who likes to try things out
before she recommends them.
A sort of reporting guinea pig.
And that's what I did with competitions
and why I was asked to present the complete compa.
So here's a list of what I won.
Because the woman who won the £5,000 fitted kitchen was me.
And £700 worth of wins in one month
me again.
And if I can do it, you can too.
Because anything is possible in the world of comping.
Good luck.
Thank you.