Meet The Compers: Julie Dillamore

For the latest Meet The Compers, I’m excited to introduce you to Julie Dillamore (@Moondill on social media), a successful and inspirational comper who at 70+, is still making the effort to learn new skills to help with her comping! Julie has won some fabulous prizes on Instagram, and I was delighted to have her as a guest on my Legends Live Instagram special earlier this year.

Julie, you’ve been comping for years now! How did you get started?

Back in 1981 I had given up work as I was pregnant with my son – I entered a slogan competition and won a bottle of Dubonnet! Then I was listening to the radio and entered my top six tracks on the Mike Allen Show – they chatted with me about the reasons behind them, played my songs – and I collected a nice tee-shirt. My third winning entry was another slogan win with Whiskas – which resulted in a much needed break in The Cotswolds. Hey presto, I’d discovered comping – and was well and truly hooked!

Are you a member of a local comp club?

In 1986, I moved to West Sussex and answered an advert in the magazine Competitors Journal to exchange collector cards for the Raisin Splits competition. It turned out that the lady I was exchanging with – Sylvia Robbins – lived locally and she encouraged me to join a night-class on “How to Win Consumer Competitions” hosted by a local script-writer, Tony Wheatley. In the classes we discussed slogans, then we completed homework and judged the slogans anonymously the following week. It was at these classes that I met my lifelong comping mates – after the course finished, we decided to continue meeting once a month at each others’ houses. I met another local comper Sue Dyke by chance when we both won tickets to see the basketball in London – swiftly noticing a telltale Budweiser jacket alongside her on the seat! Dee Brook spotted my feature in the local paper, and looked me up in the phone book. Dee and Sue both joined our “Comping Mates” team, and we all love our monthly meet-ups – it’s now been almost forty years! We have shared some great wins together – Andrea Goodheart and I enjoyed a beekeeper experience, and most recently this year Sue, Dee and I had a fun trip to the sand polo!

What’s the best prize you’ve won over the years?

That would definitely have to be my win in 1986 – a prize in The Daily Mail YOU magazine. It was a six-factor order of merit (OOM) comp with a slogan, promoted by Toyota and Cellnet, in the early days of mobile phones. Amazingly, I managed to nail the OOM and my answer to the lead-in cinched it: “I want to win a Toyota GT with Cellnet because… I’d dial in style, more words per mile…” (Cellnet had the largest mobile coverage at the time). That won us the most fabulous trip to the Italian Grand Prix, flying club-class and staying in a fabulous hotel on Lake Maggiore, a gala evening, loads of Cellnet goodies, AND a beautiful white Toyota Corolla GT (presented at Brands Hatch, where we were driven round the track by James Hunt’s brother, David). And of course an in-car and portable mobile phone with free calls (roughly the size of a brick)! I honestly found it really hard to sleep for around a week after I received my winning letter, known in those days as an LWE – long white envelope! 

What does your husband think of your comping hobby?

He naturally loves my hobby! In the early days, I would regularly test my slogans on him and try and hone them after his verdict. He’s more than happy to get involved in my comping, taking part in Instagram entries – and recently driving us around miles of muddy farm track roads in the Cotswolds to meet a six-part ‘treasure hunt’ style challenge. It was pretty tricky – but after finding the Ostrich Farm, the art gallery, the brewery, the flower barn, Jurassic lake area and historic estate, we came up trumps! We had enormous fun doing it, and our reward for winning was a beautiful three night cottage stay for up to eight people! 

What are your favourite competition websites, forums or resources?

I really rely on the Compers Shopping List via my Lucky Legends membership – it’s great to source current purchase-necessary comps – and so handy to use by sorting the headers – I’d be absolutely lost without it! 

Could you share your top three Instagram tips?

I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy some truly fabulous wins from my favourite platform – Instagram. As discussed on our Legends broadcast, Di – I think my top three tips would be:

• firstly present your account as a snapshot of you and your interests – with a clear profile shot and lots of colourful pictures on your profile
• set up and start using a back-up account – not to duplicate entries – but in good time to use as an alternative for those pesky Instagram bans around advent!
• Follow the qualifying criteria and – if it allows – use a small pertinent comment to interact with the promoter. 

Comping has changed a lot over the years – what do you miss about the old days?

Comping has changed such a lot since I started in the early eighties. I used to really love the challenge of the tie-breaker slogan type – and then that incredible surprise feeling when an unexpected LWE arrived on the doormat amongst the bills! At one of our recent Christmas Comping Mates get-togethers, lovely Evelyn Cooke cleverly surprised us all by finding our guru Tony Wheatley – and arranging for him to dress as Santa and visit our meeting! It was wonderful to catch up and he was thrilled and overwhelmed to hear of our successes over the years, thanks to his tuition! 

Which competition win are you most proud of?

That would be probably what would be classed as a small win – technically not even a win as such, but nevertheless it meant a lot to me. It was in the 80s – when a series of encyclopaedia type books were published, called Chronicles. They ran a competition with several questions and then a tie-break slogan. Sadly as it was pre-internet and with two small children, I didn’t manage to get to the library to fully research my answers. Months passed, the competition closed and I’d forgotten all about it. I then received a letter from the publishers to say that, although I hadn’t been successful with my answers, they liked my slogan so much that they wished to use it in their advertising, and would I accept a Chronicle book of my choosing as a thank you? I was just thrilled that a publishing company felt my slogan “It’s an open invitation – to a world of information” worthy of actually using themselves!

You’ve had some really fancy wins – designer handbags, jewellery and luxury hotel stays, but which was your most glamorous?

The trip to Sweden and Denmark with Ramlosa Mineral Water some years ago was a fairytale prize! We enjoyed first class flights, stayed in a sumptuous hotel suite with its own sauna, took a private limousine through the icy forests to savour an endless gastronomic smorgasbord and visited Hamlet’s castle. There was a fellow winner on the trip, Pat Killeeen, and many years later when I joined London Competitors Club, I met her again! It’s a small comping world.

In the past couple of years, we have also enjoyed an unbelievable overnight stay at the Shard including chauffeur, meals, a wardrobe refresh and iPhone. A Mothers Day competition resulted in an opulent overnight stay with my sister in law at The Peninsula, London – where I was presented with a beautiful necklace by their in-house jeweller at a champagne reception, and then we enjoyed an Olympic-size spa to ourselves the next day. It’s awesome to take a peek at how the other half live! 

Have you ever inspired anyone else to start comping?

Over the years, I’ve encouraged lots of friends and family to start entering competitions – and they’ve gone on to achieve heaps of success. Even my sister in Australia is now a comper! It’s a great feeling to share the excitement when they win – and keeps everyone’s motivation up. Amongst their wins have been holidays, mini-breaks, domestic appliances, jewellery, make-up, an electric car charger and installation, clothing, days out, etc. It’s a truly life-changing hobby – and there’s untold pleasure in learning that you might have helped others to enjoy it in some small way. 

Thank you so much Julie, I’ve absolutely loved the stories – and your order of merit win back in the 80s is absolutely fantastic!

If you enjoyed this interview please do check out the other Meet The Compers Q&As here. If you’d like to know more about the Lucky Legends membership, head to superlucky.me/luckylegends