Garden Tools Giveaway: and the winner is...

My garden tools giveaway proved to be most popular, so I'm trying a different approach to pick the winner this time. Much as I love my terracotta pot for drawing the winner's name, I'm trying to be more scientific in the way things get done.

I've used a random number generator to pick a winner from all those entered.

Before this, everyone's blog comment and/or tweet was logged onto a spreadsheet in the order of when they appeared. It's taken a while to match the blogs, tweets and times to ensure everyone's entry has been treated fairly. So without further ado, who is the mysterious number 7?

It's Jo at The Good Life! Congratulations Jo, I'll be in touch shortly to make arrangements for your prize :)

Many thanks to all of you who entered and better luck for next time. I'll be hosting another fab giveaway soon, so stay tuned!

For the future, what would you prefer? Random numbers and spreadsheets, names drawn out of a terracotta pot, or something else? I'd love your help in deciding how giveaways are run on Veg Plotting going forward :)

Update: I've just found this post about the legal position governing the operation of competitions/ prize draws, which also applies to those run on blogs, twitter and facebook. It's a lot of food for thought and I'm currently questioning whether to have competitions/giveaways at all going forward.

Comments

  1. Angie25 February 2013 at 19:05

    Well done Jo!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anna B25 February 2013 at 21:35

    Haha! The random number generator is great! Well done Jo indeed :) !!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. VP25 February 2013 at 22:00

    Hi Angie and Anna B - nice to see your congratulations, especially as you can see how close you were to the winning number.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jo26 February 2013 at 10:26

    Thank you so much, to say I'm thrilled is an understatement. Thank you to Angie and Anna for their congratulations too. I'm more than happy with the random number generator, lol.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gaz26 February 2013 at 11:09

    Well done Jo!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous26 February 2013 at 12:37

    It sounds as if the method you've used this time would be very time consuming if numbers of entrants increased a lot. As the number is generated randomly anyway, I'm wondering if it's absolutely necessary to get entrants into the order of entry? After all, there's no advantage to being twentieth or seventh on the list, as the number is random.

    Just thought, you could combine the 2 methods - have a numbered list and draw the number out of a pot. That way, you'd have a set of numbers for re-use...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VP26 February 2013 at 17:10

      Also I wanted to see how long the 'life' of a competition is, its relationship with tweets etc. Putting everything into a spreadsheet answered those questions, so it was well worth the effort. I don't think having a competition lasting 2 weeks at this time of the year is worth the effort as all but 2 entries came in the first week. Might be different in the summer though!

      Delete
  7. HELENE26 February 2013 at 13:34

    I just think it is amazing that you are doing this, well done for doing the work!
    And congratulations to Jo!

    ReplyDelete
  8. VP26 February 2013 at 15:51

    Gaz - absolutely! I'm pleased to find Jo needs the tools too as her hubby broke his spade and has been borrowing hers!

    Helen - I've found out I need to check what ASA says on running lotteries as my understanding is blogs are covered by this too. I used to draw names out of the pot, which took longer than this method. Having a set of numbers would be much better, if I can continue in this way! Oh and fingers crossed I never run out of numbers..., or size of pot ;)

    Helene - thanks Helene, better luck for you next time :)

    ReplyDelete

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