Everyone's a Winner Baby!

Everyone loves a freebie or to win any competition right down to a school fete raffle. I stand and confess I’m a bit of a freebie/competition addict.

After posting my latest product testing project on Facebook and Twitter a lot of people have asked how I’m so “lucky”; truth be told it’s probably more about the odds rather than luck. I must enter up to 25 competitions a week and am signed up to various freebie websites and product testing schemes.  All of which only take a few minutes every morning, but once you start getting odd shaped packages through the post – it’s hard to stop.

Latest Product Testing

In the ten years I’ve had this hobby; I’ve won tickets to the Brit Awards, a 7ft Cherry Tree, A block of cheese, a dozen mascara’s,  tickets to shows, crates of wine and Bailey’s, free dinners at restaurants, perfumes and tons of other weird and wonderful surprises.

As for freebie’s these tend to be smaller but no less fun; free mini Tabasco bottles, boxes of cereal, boxes of tea, jars of coffee, DNA magnets, countless pen’s and badges. As for product testing I’ve had emergency packages of pasta, cheese couriered to my door in boxes of dried ice and books with a 72 hour reading time before a review was needed.

Perks of the freebie lover!

Some of you regular readers may even remember when I was given 48 copies of the same book to give out to friends and family earlier this year!

I started this excessive form filling in the long nights of pain and spasms when I’d watched all my DVD’s, cable TV had bored me to tears and no one was awake to chat to.

I never use any of the above to sell or make any money from them in wages; it’s purely for the love of getting post! I used to have dozens of pen pals as a child/teenager and since we all keep in touch via e-mail I miss beautifully hand written letters, colourful invitations and pretty thank you cards.

If you’d like to try your hand at winning or would just like to get a few free tea bags now and then here’s how....

•       Check out your favourite companies’ websites and Facebook pages and join their mailing lists, especially as this time of year, there are countless Christmas comps.
•          Magic Freebies UK http://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk/ and http://www.freebieuk.org.uk/ do all the hard work for you finding the best goodies
•          UK Competitions http://www.ukcompetitions.com/ are brilliant as when you enter the competitions the site logs your entry so you don’t keep going back to the same pages.
•         Pick me up Magazine have a Comp club http://comps.pickmeupmagazine.co.uk/index.php one of my friends has been incredibly lucky here!
•         Super Savvy is a lifestyle website for UK ladies and they hold product testing groups and you’ll also find money off vouchers for household and beauty products http://www.supersavvyme.co.uk/home.aspx

·         My only other advice is keep your eyes open – enter all and any competitions in magazines, news papers, websites and even watch for the ads on facebook.  Or if you get really serious about it quite literally Google for UK Freebies and UK Competitions.

     As much of a cliché as this may sound but; if you’re not in it you can’t win it!

        L x

Goodie Two Shoes

Some people have weird notions of what volunteering is. Most envisage being stuck behind the counter of a charity shop or soup kitchens and money collections – not that there is anything boring, less valid or worthwhile about these, but there is so much more you can do to not only help others and gain something for yourself.

A friend remarked once that I was a charity “Ho” (you know who you are!) and although from the outside my volunteering may seem like a glory seeking, goodie two shoes act I’ve gained a lot from these experiences. Getting back as much as you give doesn’t have to be a selfish thing!

I volunteer when I’m able to as I cannot work, my condition CRPS is so temperamental that I’m sadly an unreliable work force and most of the time in too much pain or exhausted from lack of sleep. Volunteering makes me feel like I’m still contributing to society.

Over the 10 years I’ve been volunteering I have:

• Taught children’s drama classes
• Help organise a Fleetwood Mac tribute evening
• Made a few hundred sandwiches in one sitting for a children’s club outing
• Cooked meals for families who couldn’t afford their own food
• Held homework classes and I.T tutorials
• Offered online buddy systems for children with CRPS
• Dressed up in various costumes/daft hats for promotion of charities and collections
• Written articles/poems/advertising for various causes

And loads more, and had I been able I would have done more, mind you had I been able to I would have got a job instead!

As I was unable to take the “normal” routes to college and University my grades alone wouldn’t have got me into the courses I wanted to take, but team leaders, tutors and entry boards saw that I was determined, forever trying my hand at new things and committed. Yes my health always governs all of the above but I’ll never give up trying.

Just this week I’ve been volunteering with the Southend Operatic and Dramatic Society (S.O.D.S) helping out in front of house selling programmes and roses for their production of Beauty and the Beast. I’ve only managed a couple hours due to pain levels soaring (although my doctor has, today, doubled my medication – Thankfully!!) but I like meeting new people and catching up with old friends – I sometimes moan about a duty or something I’ve said yes to but 99% of the time I love doing it!

The Machine Gun Preacher

Last night my brother’s girlfriend, Kate and I headed to the cinema to see The Machine Gun Preacher for the absolute sole purpose of, to put it in simple terms, ogle and perve at the film’s star Gerard Bulter, of whom

we are both a little (okay a lot!) in love with! (Sorry Mike!)

We settled with our Pepsi Max and popcorn had a good old giggle at the commercials and trailers for up and coming films. Neither of us had really thought about the film we were seeing, we just needed our GB fix!

We were horrified when the opening scene was a Sudan village being destroyed and the towns’ people being shot, cut or kidnapped. Kate and I looked at each other as if to say “why are we watching this when Tin Tins playing next door?”

The real Sam Childers (L) and Gerard Bulter (R)

The story of the Machine Gun Preacher is about the life’s work of Sam Childers. Sam was a broken man with a criminal and drug fuelled past. To be honest for the first 30 minutes of Gerard’s performance I started to go off not only Sam but Gerard himself who played this disturbing character alarmingly well!

Luckily with the love and support of his family and church Sam Childers became an upstanding member of his community and a pastor from Africa visited his church, telling the congregation of the plight of Sudan under the rule of Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). It’s estimated that the LRA have to date abducted around 50,000 children who have been forced to fight with them as child soldiers or have sold them into sex slavery

Sam, an owner of a construction business and his wife Lynn, decided they were in a position to help. They set up Angels of East Africa charity.

I don’t want to spoil the film too much for anyone but I spent the entire time delicately balanced emotionally between hope and helplessness, joy and disgust as Sam tries to help the Sudanese orphans.

If you get a chance please go see this film, it’s heart wrenching and at times; unbelievably hard to keep watching, but it’s worth it to learn not only Sam's story but the children’s ones too. The film is brilliantly directed by Marc Forster (who previously directed Mosters Ball, Quantum of Solace) and without bias Gerard’s best performance so far!

For more information on Angels of East Africa or Sam Childers please click here and maybe even donate a few pennies – I did!

L x