Have you ever won anything?

Fanfare! Feedback! And It began with the Flash Club

Writing The Scary: Article, The Horror Of The Unreal

Status
Not open for further replies.
I once won a stainless steel exhaust system for my Mini Clubman Estate. I entered a competition in one of the car magazines, run by a firm called Midas Exhausts. They were looking for a punchy advertising slogan to use, so I penned 'Midas Exhausts as Good as Gold, New Exhausts exchanged for Old'.

To my surprise it won, and they used the slogan for many years afterwards—which was a much cheaper way for them of getting good copy than paying an advertising agency.

Some time later I scrapped the car, which had become unfeasible to repair. I kicked myself as the scrap-yard's lorry towed it away, as the exhaust was still as good as ever, and I could have sold it for more than the Mini itself. D'oh!
 
I won tickets on a theater premiere few years back. The theater asked (on their Facebook fp) what can be the interpretation of the play's title- "NAD" (in polish, without a proper context, it hardly means anything, its an adverb meaning "over", "above"). The person who would give the most creative suggestion would get a double ticket for the premiere. So, I wrote to them that being a biologist for me the most plausible meaning is Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide, a common coenzyme crucial for many cellular processes. And I won! :D
 
I won two quizzes in school...just *glory* for my House. The Houses were named for birds of prey and I was in Hawk. We had Kestrel, Falcon Eagle...and Condor. Why Condor? We could have had Harrier, Owl or Kite or. Why did the school go all the way to the Andes for the last bird? :confused:

A few small Lottery wins...I don't buy tickets, hub used to in the beginning.

£10 for a poem in The Literary Review wwwwooooooohooooo

And a bag of new books in a writing competition.

And I once won a coconut on a coconut shy, which my mother distrusted as probably not fresh.
 
At school I won the Cotton prize for maths...i still don't know what that means.

I like entering business competitions that i know i have a good chance of winning..not because I am any good but because not enough enter or it is a new competition..and because of this i believe that the following awards were given to me..

Arts Institute Merit Award £250
Unltd level 1 award £4981
Striding Out Big leap 2007 Winner
Future 100 Social Entrepreneur 2 years running ..( they were new and i guess i filled a spot)
Barking and Dagenham business award for best business (there were at least 9 other categories)


And recently just won a place with the Young Academy programme for a chance of procuring up to £150k.

I realise i risk being seen as a brag..but honestly i have lost many more than i have gained. As you know i didn't get into the Brand Licensing event but with that rejection a lot of positive energy injected and asking "why the heck didn't our brand win!?" Opened a few doors :D
 
I won two quizzes in school...just *glory* for my House. The Houses were named for birds of prey and I was in Hawk. We had Kestrel, Falcon Eagle...and Condor. Why Condor? We could have had Harrier, Owl or Kite or. Why did the school go all the way to the Andes for the last bird? :confused:
.

Whatever the reason...Cities of Gold tune is now being hummed and i fear will not be erased anytime soon from my mind.
 
I've won a few things over the years...lets see if I can remember...

-When I was little, I won a contest where you had to put Lego pieces together as fast as you could. Got a Lego set for that...
-I came in third place in an essay contest in middle or elementary school...I can't remember which (it had something to do with the importance of women in the workplace or writing. It was a very long time ago, so I can't quite remember. I'll ask my mom...she'll know for sure).
-I randomly won tickets to a concert once. Gave those to my parents...
-A few years ago, I won an iPad at work. That was cool.
-I won the fourth quarter score pool at a Super Bowl party I went to...still need to collect my winnings. :p

I also won a few pretty nice scholarships for college...

Usually, I maintain that I never win anything, but thinking back for this thread, I guess that isn't really the case. Now I feel special. Thanks @KG Christopher. :D
 
OK, I dont think winning gold stars counts as winning. Everyone gets them, Its a way of encouraging you. So please, less of the 'I Got a gold star for tidying the toys up'.

So far, I think @Paul Whybrow's Midas Exhaust is winning, followed closely by @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine's coconut.

...Actually, I never got a gold star, I din't go to that forward thinking type of school .:(
 
Um... probably. I'd have to think about it. LOL!! Various little awards in grade school, junior high (we now call that "middle school" over here), and high school. I think. Hard to remember that far back most days. :D I did win an award with a name on it and a $750 scholarship when I graduated from nursing school, for having the highest GPA in the class. As for writing stuff, some of my books have won contests. I've crowed about them on here. ;)
 
My favourite winning, for its sheer ridiculousness was that I won a jar of pickled pigs feet once, for being the first of my class to locate the appendix of the fetal pig we were dissecting.

I also won Legacy magazine's Best Article award in 2001 for an article on using insects in heritage interpretation--marginally more prestigious than the pickled pigs feet. ;)

I also won a t-shirt and a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe TV series at a science education conference science trivia contest.

Bunch of scholarships, too, for Uni.

Oh, yeah, and I won Penn State University's Continuing Education award for Creativity and Innovation one year for the International Ecology Camp I ran for the Japanese All Star Little League Team and a couple dozen other international students. (Not that there was really much creativity and innovation involved--just a shitload of work).
 
Ooops, I thought this was just about tangibles.
My first book, A Perfect Victim, which was e-published, was named 2015's best mystery by the Electronic Publishing Industry Coalition.
The next book, Secrets, Lies & Homicide, is a finalist for the 2016 award. The winner will be named soon.
The honors, while appreciated, have had no tangible affect on sales, although there appeared to be a spike in piracy after the 2015 win.
 
I love this thread.

Two wins.

1987, placed third in a short story competition run by Elle Magazine. Got £25 and a place in an anthology called Murder & Company. Was invited to publication party. Forgot about it. Then in 2008, a friend came up to me in the staff room and said, was your maiden name Kalim? Yes, I said, and it turned out that a radio production company had picked up the story, broadcast is and were looking for me to pay royalties. They had placed a notice in the small ads of Private Eye, Spectator and New Statesman, and they found me, and even better paid me £450.

Other than that, in 1994, I won a magnum of Dragon Boat Rosé, an early and pretty horrible example of Chinese winemaking, with an accompanying corkscrew.
 
My favourite winning, for its sheer ridiculousness was that I won a jar of pickled pigs feet once, for being the first of my class to locate the appendix of the fetal pig we were dissecting.

I also won Legacy magazine's Best Article award in 2001 for an article on using insects in heritage interpretation--marginally more prestigious than the pickled pigs feet. ;)

I also won a t-shirt and a copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe TV series at a science education conference science trivia contest.

Bunch of scholarships, too, for Uni.

Oh, yeah, and I won Penn State University's Continuing Education award for Creativity and Innovation one year for the International Ecology Camp I ran for the Japanese All Star Little League Team and a couple dozen other international students. (Not that there was really much creativity and innovation involved--just a shitload of work).

OK, pickled pigs feet????

When I was 21, I went to Carnival in Trinidad to party for 2 weeks, was great, loads of parties (Fetes as they say) and one evening, I went along with my family, I was quite sloshed and was handed a styrofoam cup with a pickeled trotter in it, it was dark and lots of music, I thought someone had given me a drink, I put it to my mouth and tasted salty pickled pigs trotter.

'Yuk' I screamed and threw it on the ground.

My host came up to me and said 'I am so sorry, we did not mean to offend your faith' and I said

'I thought it was a rum and coke on the rocks'.
 
OK, I dont think winning gold stars counts as winning. Everyone gets them, Its a way of encouraging you. So please, less of the 'I Got a gold star for tidying the toys up'.

So far, I think @Paul Whybrow's Midas Exhaust is winning, followed closely by @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine's coconut.

...Actually, I never got a gold star, I din't go to that forward thinking type of school .:(


Gold stars for tidying up the toys. It is a bit patronising, really, innit, the too easy reward.

This is the gold star no school gave, ever. (?)

bad gold star.jpg
 
Ahhhh :(

I got hit on the hand in Infant's school for being a chatterbox. I later get one smack on the behind at 13, for the same. That shouldn't have happened.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Fanfare! Feedback! And It began with the Flash Club

Writing The Scary: Article, The Horror Of The Unreal

Back
Top