Lee - perhaps I misunderstood your subject in my earlier post - which was,btw, tongue in cheek.

However,as this thread is now a ££ for Beoworld thread, I hereby promise to make the next King Street in-store gig a money raiser for BeoWorld ( either partially or exclusively - details tbc) - we drummed up about £600 for Chethams School of Music over the weekend, with a Charidee Auction at half time.

Regards

David.

ps- why not ask B&O UK about hosting a dealer forum ( passworded, but within your system) for a modest charge...

My toughts:

• Give away more collectible B&O gear, which is valuable and less expensive than new stuff (as somebody mentioned, Beolits, Beomasters, etc).
• I also support the quarterly superdraw idea, with less expensive gifts in the "normal" monthly draw.
• Why don't collector members (or any member) donate any of their collectible objects for further use in the monthly draw. It will be good to see at the end of someone's post "I have donated the 1st prize in July's draw, a mint Beogram xxxx". Those guys donating good pieces of B&O gear may be able to sell other stuff later to members, as people will know that they have excellent pieces. They could also be listed in a section of "Beoworld golden supporters with pictures of their contributions". By collectible items I'm not necessarily talking of expensive items, but also catalogues, soldiers, books, LC2s, etc. And not necessarily need to be collectible or old. But in perfect condition.
• You can create a platinum or diamond category, worth 50 or 100 pound, that will entitle for a special bi-quarterly or yearly draw with the rarest and most seek after stuff, like Beograms 3000 (1967), Beovox 2500, etc. such a draw could have fewer prizes.

My cent.

What about allowing non silver/gold members to be entered into the monthly draw for a small fee (payable through paypal?)

Might help get some revenue.

doomlordis:

What about allowing non silver/gold members to be entered into the monthly draw for a small fee (payable through paypal?)

To be fair, non-gold members ARE allowed to enter the monthly draw for a whole year for a small fee - £30! 

benkap:

doomlordis:

What about allowing non silver/gold members to be entered into the monthly draw for a small fee (payable through paypal?)

To be fair, non-gold members ARE allowed to enter the monthly draw for a whole year for a small fee - £30! 

Everybody can take part in the prize draw without paying any fee! Read here! 

I think what benkap was trying to say that 12 entries in the draw to win so much, with so many chances, for £30 is actually a small fee in the sense of the word.

Lee

Why does Beoworld allow people who have contributed nothing financially the chance of winning the prizes??

Cheers

Nigel 

h1npw:

Why does Beoworld allow people who have contributed nothing financially the chance of winning the prizes??

Cheers

Nigel 

You can enter any prize draw without buying anything. 

Tom:

h1npw:

Why does Beoworld allow people who have contributed nothing financially the chance of winning the prizes??

Cheers

Nigel 

You can enter any prize draw without buying anything. 

Non "Gold" entries must be sent by registered post to ensure their arrival on time for the draw. This ensures there are no disputed entries. Sending twelve registered entries is more expensive than joinging as a Gold member.

Join as a Gold member if you want to be in all the draws - QED!

britops:

We could all sell our avatar space for advertisements to raise money?

Cool......................if I buy your avatar I could start a Navy!................... Next the world!!

Some really positive comments here - i am genuinely surprised that you do all actually sit back and think "hang on - this must cost a small fortune!"  Here i am writing the cheques thinking "nobody has a clue" and you all clearly do.. you just never said!! *looks skywards*

KingStreet - you are indeed a very special bunch, and your offer of a charity night was so kind i had to read it twice, then stop typing to take it in. You do so much for BeoWorld and it's members already, we can't ask for you to do that.

Soundproof - good suggestion, but hand picking threads to 'star' on our pages would be time consuming and may even upset people if their thread with umpteen answers didn't get on there! Cries of 'favouritism' would really undermine the mod team. Thank you for the suggestions of actual sites and companies to approach and look at  - i will do that.

tournedos - thank you for being so calm and understanding!  Of course, if we do resort to ads on the forum they will be tasteful and in keeping. The moderating team would shoot me down if i allowed dross on there, Van would refuse to put them on there, and just to nullify all that - i wouldn't let it happen anyway.

Ignace, Puncher - Great ideas, you are both a fountain of knowledge and come up with great suggestions. Thank you both!

h1npw - Audi was one of my target advertisers, thank you for confirming my thoughts!

wirralsimon - you won fair and square!  I was so pleased when you won, and the photo's you sent really made me smile!  Every time i take a trip to the post office with prizes to send i get a real buzz. It's wonderful to give something back to the members that have stuck their hands in their pockets to support us, and the emails i get thanking BeoWorld for the wonderful prizes make it all worthwhile.  

Flappo - Your command of the 'art of irrelevance' astounds me. Thank you for showing me your current favourite moving avatar. Wibble.

Michael - I see your point, which is completely sensible. However, i'm 'dancing with the devil' now i'm afraid.  If someone joins in say January and sees great prizes for that month, then sees great prizes for February and thinks "i'm not going to post as i'm not really that way inclined - but i'll pay my £30 and take a chance in the draw every month" - how cheated would they feel if the prizes were heavily watered down from March onwards?  I can't do that, it's not fair.

Peter - B&O sponsoring us will never happen i'm sure, but the donated prizes for the draw and their hospitality added to the increased level of contact can only be seen as a positive. The two huge boxes of prizes was extremely kind.

beobeo - extremely sensible and valid points. The 'barn find' items are what i am constantly on the lookout for, and over the next 12 months i have some beauties stored up for us!!  However, it's the newer products that appeal to the most people, and so i must appeal to them when presenting draw prizes.  I love the older equipment, but there are a huge percentage of people out there with a BV7-40 and a BC2 (for instance) that don't need a boxed and unused BeoCord 5500 or such like.  It's difficult, so i like to offer current products to please almost everyone as opposed to the few that are into the vintage/rare items.

I will let the dust settle a little, and see what other suggestions come in - but for the meantime, thank you all for your positivity!

Lee

Well I can appreciate that you're thanking everyone for their input but I'm really disappointed that you haven't gone for the "Second hand toy fish" idea - I thought it was a banker!!

Well... I do like it as it's now.

Any new initiative is welcome, and shows an active forum, that is't not a matter of bits but a group of people you like to keep in contact with, and share ideas, advices and news.

My only recommendation, don't loose the focus on people inter-communications.

Just my 2 cents...

Lee, I know and understand that you're against the idea of 'watering down' the prize draw but let's assume that BeoWorld announced that as of, say, 1 June 2009 the prize draw will feature slightly less expensive prizes, then that would be a fair notice for anyone that considers joining BW merely for the prize draw.
The problem with that model is that 'lurkers' (no offence meant) might refrain from renewing their membership on that basis.

There's also the opportunity to have a top three of prizes of equal economic value but from different time eras and then let the higher prize drawee (is that even a word) decide which item he prefers.

Best regards,
Ben
 

Personally I think an advert in the forums would be a good idea. One at the top and one at the bottom. The site may not look quite as exclusive as it currently does, but IMO the benefits massively outweigh disadvantages (making some rough guesses on how many more impressions the adverts in the forum would receive.

I agree with others RE the photos area. I used to visit it frequently with the older site, but the CS implementation does make things difficult. You've already said that CS2008 would fix the issue though...

Banner ads would be fine as long as there's no annoying flash and popups.  I really doubt simple banner ads would bother the members.

As for the prize draw, I'd actually prefer if there were more prizes but at smaller values.  For example, rather than having one prize be a 1000GBP gift certificate, split it into 3 prizes of 200GBP gift certificates.  Not only does it give more people chances to win, but it costs the site 600 rather than 1000.  I really doubt someone who would have won a 200GBP certificate would say "drats, I would much rather have traded my 200GBP certificate in for a smaller chance at winning 1000."

One other non-money related suggestion I'd really like to see here:  I love going through the older B&O catalogues posted on the site.  I noticed quite a few years are missing though, and I also haven't seen any of the little promotional brochures for individual systems.  Is there some way we could increase the awareness and encourage members who have older B&O literature to scan and email them to be included on the site?  I myself have some things not on the site that I planned on sending, but haven't gotten the time to yet.

Austin