My comping friends

And although not all of these ladies might be as mad on comping as I still am, many of us still keep in touch and five of us meet annually with two other Chatterboxers for a boozy comping weekend. We’ve been to Bristol, London, Devon, Nottingham and at the weekend it was Jan’s house in Warwickshire. We gather round a laptop and a copy of Compers News, take photos, write slogans, reminisce about our wins and generally fire up our comping enthusiasm! Would you believe the five of us in this photo have won ELEVEN cars between us?

These days I think too many compers sit at their computers all day long – to actually meet up and share a cuppa or a glass of wine with your fellow compers is a really special part of the hobby. My friends and I have organised three charity comping days since 2007 and it’s been great for people to come along on their own and leave with new friends. We’re not actually running an event this year, but there is a ‘Compers Mentis’ get-together in Weston on 1st October – check out the event details on Facebook. I’m also a member of the London Competitors Club and try to get to their meetings when I can, and I’m a member of two Nottingham comping clubs – although I’ll admit both of these are pretty relaxed affairs and more about gossiping than comping! Lots of us have hundreds of friends on Facebook and Twitter and I bet many of these friends live closer than you think – why not suggest a get-together at a local pub that’s easy to find, and see if anyone’s interested? If you get some positive feedback, you could set up a Facebook group or event page with dates and details. I’m thinking about having a get-together in a Nottingham city centre venue or pub in the Summer, so if you’re based in the East Midlands and would like to come, email me and I’ll send you some details. I’ve also started a discussion on my Super Lucky Facebook page, if you fancy meeting up with fellow compers post your location and we’ll see if we can get some groups started up.

I can’t possibly sign off without sharing some of the weekend’s photos with you all… here are some of our Fairtrade Foundation competition entries – don’t forget most of these challenges are still running and with 21 prizes in each challenge there’s such a good chance of winning!

And now that Absolute have amended the rules on their excellent ‘Faces for Radio‘ competition, so that the ten most popular entries AND the ten best judged entries will all be shortlisted for the 3 prizes (of £5000, £1000 and £500) it’s definitely worth trying to get the ugliest photo ever to be in with a chance of winning! Here are our attempts from 7.30am on Sunday morning with a hanogver…

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking – how embarrassing! But it’s fun, and as always those of us that make the effort are more likely to win – so stop being shy and get out there – make friends and get silly!