A bit thanks to one of our new users who alerted us to an interesting piece on Monday 9th November’s Woman’s Hour on Radio 4. You can tune in to the clip on The BBC and it makes quite interesting listening. Judi Herman joins up with a Midlands Comping Group to discuss their comping and prize wins. Interestingly the compers in the clip say their secret of winning is quantity over quality, although we’d have preferred them to qualify that more with “quantity of prizes you want to win” rather than go and enter anything and everything. The club lament the demise of the tiebreakers and also highlight that the internet has brought in more entries.
500 Competition Entries A Day?
They also discuss the recession and comping and say who and what defines an actual comper! The recession element is debatable – there are more compers, but that could be because of the recession and/or it could be because access to competitions online has become so much easier, and perhaps even more main stream through social networks like Twitter, Facebook and even MSE. A spokesperson from moneysavingexpert, Jenny Keith, is also interviewed and claims that some compers enter up to 500 competitions a day. We know there are a lot of competitions around, but 500 in a day every day? That seems a bit of an exaggeration, and even the presenter seems shocked by those figures! Is there an element of “winging it” going on in this interview?
A Fun Hobby
Maybe, but the good news is that the spokeperson says that comping should be seen as a fun hobby rather than a way to make money. That’s fantastic and is a breath of fresh air from the old school ways of sticking someone in a magazine of newspaper saying they are a “professional comper” and have won fortunes. The piece also includes some top tips like the more you enter the more you win, enter local competitions and look at creative competitions. Jenny does claim that tiebreakers aren’t that popular nowadays and “it’s all about online”, but perhaps she’s not aware that tiebreaker competitions can run online and they’re still surviving… just!
Compers Are Cranky Types
Finally they discuss the male/female ratio of compers. Our own stats suggest that there are plenty of guys who enter competitions, but it’s the ladies who tend to like to chat more in competition forums. Their claim about prizes being mainly female orientated we’re not overly convinced on though. There’s a lot more prizes around than spa days and hampers! Still, all in all a good article about compers and an interesting insight into a comping club. It might be just us, but you do get the feeling that the presenter Jenni Murray kind of thinks compers might just be a little bit strange and even calls them “cranky types”.