2010 Article Contest
 

I stole the rules from the last contest but I'm unable to match the prize's, it should be fun and informative anyway.

Article Contest :cheer:

We did a contest like this in Feb '07 and it was a great success. We've added a lot of useful information to the article section of OrchidBoard. About time we do this again.

Subject: Anything related to the Orchid Hobby

Submission: Any time before Sunday Feb 28, 2010 midnight.

(if you'd like to sponsor a prize, contact me)

While sponsor's are still coming in the prize's may be rearranged as needed.


Submit an article/story about any aspect of Orchid growing. Your article must be about something that the general orchid enthusiast will find useful.

Minimum of 500 words (roughly one page typed), the use of pictures and illustrations is strongly encouraged.
Use of proper grammar and spelling is a must.

This must be your original work and submission of someone else's article from the internet will result in your immediate disqualification and possibly ... loads of embarrassment.

If you need help with resizing of images or format, let me know and I'll help you out.

Once you have an article with which you're satisfied, publish it by going to "Publish Article" on the menu on the left.

I strongly suggest you write it completely on your computer then copy and paste with some edits.
Please host any pictures used in the article in our gallery Do not use photos which are not in the OB Gallery.

See a Mini HowTo on formatting your articles


Voting for best article will begin shortly after the deadline.

Have fun and Good luck!

Check this thread for updates.


Contest rules.

1. Deadline February 28, 2010

2. Recommended width of pictures inside the articles is 320px - of course, the smaller picture can be a hyperlink to a larger picture

3. This must be your own work. Use of other or copyright material will result in immediate disqualification

4. Since all submitted articles will be featured on the main page of OrchidBoard, your article may be formatted after it is posted in order to make it look better. Content will not be altered.

5. If you submit more than 1 article, all articles will be considered for a prize, but you may only win once. Next prize goes to the runner up (not your 2nd or 3rd article). In other words, the more articles you write, the higher the chance of winning a prize.

Enough RULES, Have FUN & GOOD LUCK!


If you have any questions, reply to this thread.[/quote]

Great idea Dave...I just need to clarify something:

Has Andy's agreed to be a sponsor for this...or was this just a copy-and-paste fromthe last contest?

The Gift Certificate is donated by a individual and is not being sponsored by Andy's Orchids.

I figured, why mess with perfection so I did copy and paste the rules and changed the dates and prize's

That works :dance:

Just another shining example of the fantastic folks we have here in our neighborhood :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

I'm gonna work on a little something behind the scenes...maybe we can get a sponsor for 2nd and 3rd runners-up :crossfing

I'll keep you updated and thanks again Dave...

:Tup:

OK, I've sent out a few notes... :crossfing

A little birdie just told me there may be a 25.00 certificate for Erin's pottery as a prize. Just working out the details.

:D You guys make a great team together!! :clap:

Since a gift certificate from Andy's orchids does not help the european members, I could organize a gift certificate from an EU nursery ;)
(need to check with some people first, but for sure at least from Germany it woul be fine)

You rock! Ramon

:lovesite:

Ramon, thanks so much!
I swear I don't mean to leave you guys out on purpose :(

Hope you had a great Christmas :)

Thanks to the efforts of one of our member's we were able to get Erin Pottery to donated 3 of there beautiful pots as prize's for 1st 2nd and 3rd place article's. Check out there website to see what awesome pots they sell.

Thanks Erin's Pottery you rock!!!!

We're going to have to make some adjustments behind the scenes, Dave

I have HUGE news from Oak Hill (/udb)

:bowing:biggrin:

UPDATE and some new details
 

Hi everybody! :waving

First... a big :thankyou: to Dave for all he's done! :cheer:

We've been working on the expansion of his contest idea and we have some super-generous donations from some of our favorite vendors :Tup:

So generous, in fact, that Dave and I had to come up with a way of fairly distributing them :faint: :coverlaugh:

This is what we have so far...I'm still waiting for a couple of replies:

Are you ready for this???

Vic at Erin Pottery has graciously offered THREE of their fantastic handmade pots as 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes in the contest! :dance:

Erin Pottery


Next extraordinary donation comes from Greg at Oak Hill Gardens...a $100 Gift Certifcate as the 1st place prize!!! :wow

Oak Hill Gardens


and what a great anonymous donation from one of our own OB members...a $25 Gift Certificate to Andy's Orchids! :banana:

Andy's Orchids - Orchid Species - Orchids - Species Specialist - Orchids on a stick


Once I get responses from the other vendors I contacted we'll know if the OB member's donation will be either the 2nd or 3rd place prize :hmm


Now comes the hard part! How do we divide these most generous donations so that our European and other worldwide friends can also participate? :scratchhead:

After long thought...and a sleepless night ;) , I think we've devised a way to make it fair to all... YAY!! (udb)

The prizes will be distributed as follows:

In the U.S. only

We will have 3 winners and the three very generous gift certificates will be distributed to those U.S. winners.

All other locations

We will have 3 winners from locations outside the U.S. and those three prizes will be the wonderful pots from Erin Pottery.

So...in reality, there will be 2 polls listed at the end of the contest. One will be for the U.S. contigent and the other will be for all other locations...for a total of SIX WINNERS!!!

Our member articles in the past have been really informative and it was extremely hard to choose a "winner". In my opinion, anybody that takes the time and effort to write an informative article to share with everybody is a winner! :Tup:

Read through the rules in Dave's original post for all the details...

On your mark, get set...

GO!!! :cheer: :cheer: :cheer:

I've copied the prize information from my last post to the first post in this thread.

The thread is now also a "sticky" which means it will stay at the top of the Contests forum until the contest is completed.

This sounds like fun and I really look forword to the contributions!
I love OB for obvious reasons :-)

Nicole

With nearly 12,000 members I'm thinking there are a few hundred talented writer's out there. Also looking forward to reading them.

There's gonna be a LOT of reading ahead for the OB admin folks :yikes:

BUT...

this is going to be fantastic! I remember how hard it was to vote in the last article contest :faint:

:lovesite

I have a question Please .....

I am not a writer by any means and my grammer is atrocious to say the least and my punctuation and spelling probably worse .... sooooo

If I did write a article of some sort say on using rice hulls as a medium for growing Phals which I do and do fairly well with too.Would it be allowed to have someons like my cousin who is much better with words help me with the grammer and spelling ...ect with credit of course for the contribution.It would be a joint efforet so we would be co winners I suppose but she could half the prize with me.

You can have somebody help you if you'd like.

The stipulation is that nobody sees an article written by somebody else on the internet and claims it as their own ;)

I will also be going over the entries. So I don't go blind, I need everybody to at least make an effort and use spell check. I will correct any wrong spellings but other than that nothing will be changed by the OB Admin.

:goodluck:

How do I find out what articles have been written already?

There's no sense in writing what's been written.

Click on Member Articles in the left column for access to all OB articles :)

:bump:

Has anybody started their article yet? :scratchhead:

Well I started this contest to get a little excitement going! But it doesn't seem to have worked. If you are intending to write a article for the contest please let us know. You don't need to tell us what your writing about just that your writing one. It may generate more sponsors.

I'd like to contact Greg at Oak Hill to give hiim an update so...

who, if any of you, are planning to submit an article?

What a shame to have such great prizes up for grabs and nobody showing any interest :scratchhead:

I'll probably write an article again, seeing how successful I was last time! I hope I can find time, January is going to be really busy for me. And I need some inspiration!

Was info about the contest posted on the Facebook group for more exposure?

I'd like too. But not quite sure what to write about. :scratchhead:

Yes, I bookmarked this thread in Facebook too.

Dave, do you think maybe we should move the deadline to the end of February rather than January?
Maybe with a little more time, we'd get more folks participating.

The articles from the last contest were SO awesome, I'd love to see what this one brings :crossfing

Extending the deadline sounds like a good idea. People first have to see this thread, then need time to find inspiration, and then time to write!

And maybe we should bump this thread up to the top every day so people see it when they check the 'New Posts/ Today's Posts'.

:Tup: I will contact Erin's so they don't rush out the pots. He told me he would make them on the 20th of this month and have them ready for the first week of Feb.

Thanks Dave, good idea.
I'll contact greg again too.

By the way, we have a 2nd Place prize...from Marty! :king:

A 1-yr OB sponsorship and a 2010 OB calendar!

I will make the detailed changes to this thread a little later today :Tup:

I've started a new thread regarding the contest, it is a sticky...

This thread is now closed :)