to want the prize I won??

[Dogue]

In the grand scheme of things I’m probably being petty, but this has really annoyed me -

our village had a Christmas fair last Saturday. On Monday I had a missed call from a mobile number which turned out to be the organisers of the event. I rang back and she said was ringing to tell me I’d won a prize, but that she was out at the moment so didn’t have details but would ring me back in half an hour to let me know.

I didn’t hear back from her on Monday so I called again on Wednesday (didn’t get a chance on Tuesday) and she said the same again - someone would call me back later with details of what I’d won and how to collect.

by Thursday I still hadn’t heard from them so I texted the number about it. I got the reply: “sorry, all prizes had to be collected by Wednesday. We can give you a bottle of Prosecco as a consolation”

I’m so annoyed that I wasn’t given any opportunity to collect my prize on time. From memory the only thing I think I put my phone number down for was when my 6 year old entered the ‘guess how many sweets in the jar’ so I was really excited to tell him he had won. I’m not really bothered about having a massive jar of jellies in my house, but if that’s what we’ve won then it’s what I want! When I told her this she said she would make sure there’s a consolation prize for him too, but that’s no use really as it means I don’t get the loveliness of telling him his guess was the winner.

obviously there are much bigger things to worry about in the world right now, but it’s a bit shit and terrible organisation right??

I have always found complaining about small errors in community events and excellent way to remain friendless.

It's not an 'error', it's somebody who set an arbitrary rule that you couldn't have your prize if you didn't collect it unreasonably quickly, coupled with her inability/refusal to enable you to do so. That does sound very fishy indeed: almost as if she didn't want the prize to be given.

OP won a prize; where is that prize? It's so easily rectifiable - all the organiser has to do is remove her ridiculous rule and hand it over - or otherwise admit that she kept it herself or somehow handed it to somebody who didn't win it.

Also, where is the Prosecco from? Was that somebody else's prize that they were prevented from collecting or bought herself because of her guilty conscience? Or did she win it and preferred OP's prize to her own? It's quite a strange thing to have a 'spare' prize.

Really crap PTA by the sounds of things. Horror of running the raffle is all coming back to me. We had to ensure we had the licence from the council but it was for a thing where the kids took bundles of tickets home. And after we lined up all the prizes that weren’t picked up on the day round the office. I’d go back and retext winners to get stuff collected or ring if it was edible. I think you should at least get a kid’s prize - tin of sweets or something.

Like a lot of others, I give up whacking great amounts of time volunteering. It's a commitment. If you promote something and take people's money and time, you have to follow through. Painful as that is sometimes!

Oh, good point. If there’s money on hand for a consolation bottle of Prosecco, there’s money on hand to buy a jar of sweets. Unless the Prosecco came from some kind of donation – “please raffle this” – in which case, why wasn’t it raffled? The whole thing is so odd!

I’d escalate to someone above her asap. CF…..

Haha ok I definitely shouldn’t have quoted some made up lottery laws 😂 luckily all they have is my phone number and my sons first name so hopefully it won’t be my legacy.

im not going to kick up any more of a fuss - I’ve said I’d like to know what my prize was and where it has gone, but that’s it. And if I never hear from the volunteer again then so be it.

I do fully understand that there is a war in Ukraine, and I have had many many shit things happen to me in the past few years so I understand this is a tiny unimportant blip. But as a parent of a small child I just felt sad that something so magical as finding out he had won a prize has been taken away from him. That’s all!

but thank you for all the perspectives. I think I still sit somewhere right in the middle of ‘this is an outrage’ and ‘this is very unimportant’. Definitely interesting to hear both sides.

Also, what if the prize were of a significant value and the organisers just arbitrarily decided to keep it from you after you'd won it fair and square? What if it were a community event where you win an actual car if you roll six sixes (the organiser/sponsor usually pays a premium for insurance against it being won) and they just said "Sorry, there's been an error, so you can't have it now - but we'll get you a £10 book token instead" ?

There was a thread quite some time ago where OP won quite a decent-sounding laptop and she was continually fobbed off and gaslighted and it sounded like the organiser might have been, shall we say, 'over-protective' of the prize. I think the thread got deleted in the end, as it was starting to become outing. I was so invested in that one; was so disappointed when it went pooof!

If the war in Ukraine means that nothing else at all in the world matters, why were they even having a community event in the first place?!

My sister and BIL once won a trip to Brussels - including train fare and accommodation. They were away for a week when their win was announced and when they got back and rang the organisers they were told it was too late and it had expired and were offered a free ferry return trip to Spain instead.

They were too busy to kick up a fuss and I suspect they weren’t aware of the license laws but they took the trip in winter and it was shit 😆

I absolutely guarantee that those sweets have already been eaten by some greedy fucker who swooped in one minute after the deadline.

How/why did they set such a short timeline for when prizes had to be collected and where has it gone?! I'd definitely want to know too OP.

Oh god, the raffle license squad were early! And wrong as usual! 🤣

It's a nuisance. It's a bit shit.

I'm not sure I could be this upset by it though.

You are definitely not being unreasonable to want your prize. Can't figure out why they wouldn't have kept it for the winner, wasn't a long time for collection. Also the fact that the organiser knew you had been in touch and didn't call you back. I would want to know what the prize was and whatever happened to it. My mum once donated a service to a fundraising thing and actually knew the person who won. But a different person showed up for the treatment, mum thought it was a friend of relative. When she ran into the actual winner while later she made a joke about not trusting mums abilities and sending someone else. I don't remember the exact details but think one of the organisers daughter nabbed it.

The winner didn't make a fuss but it inspired my mum to be a member of the group and she made sure she was in charge of ensuring prizes went to the correct person. Every Christmas, we had a collection of prizes with tickets, waiting to be collected. I'm not going to lie, some of them were pretty tempting.

Considering it's just a village fair, I would probably be forgiving. But I'd definitely want to know, maybe it will set you on your own campaign for prize justice!

I'm fuming on your behalf. Someone somewhere has their sticky paws in your sweet jar. Probably what prevented them from answering the phone.

Exactly, why do people always have to one up others on things?

"I've a broken foot"
"A broken foot? You are lucky to even HAVE a foot!" etc etc

It is so wearing

If the sweets have been eaten, I'd ask for the empty jar and fill it with the right number of sweets for your DC. Yes, it's a faff but I can understand your DC's excitement.

God, this would really piss me off and then I would be even more pissed off because I would know that’s it not a big enough thing to be pissed off about and I’d feel petty making a fuss about it. So I’d be double pissed-off. Are these people you’re likely to see again?

It's probably the husband. Or the organiser herself in a drunken fit of the munchies. Otherwise you'd just fess up, wouldn't you? "Sorry, my kids got hold of it and didn't realise it was a prize, a replacement is coming your way".

But as a parent of a small child I just felt sad that something so magical as finding out he had won a prize has been taken away from him

I hear you. It’s because we all have to enter various raffles, buy tickets, enter small competitions like this at events and of course you never win, you don’t expect to, so when you do, it’s actually a bit exciting.

Yes!

As the chair of a PTA I'd never allow this sort of thing to happen yes we are volunteers doing our best and mistakes happen but equally we have to take responsibility to resolve a problem if it happens - otherwise it bring the whole organisation/charity in to disrepute - we actually had 2 unclaimed prizes after our summer fair last year - despite multiple calls and messages left trying to track the winners down and arrange for them to come and collect. One of them as it happened turned up to our recent Xmas event (Over 6 months later) and asked about their prize - we were able to run straight upstairs to our storage and get it. fortunately, it wasn't a perishable or time sensitive item. To say they it's 'gone' after only a couple of days and not trying to resolve the issue is really not on. We have 100% made errors with how we have run things or not got things quite right BUT we would never not provide a truthful explanation and try and fix it.

Im my experience these things are always rigged, in our village any kind of raffle or fundraising and its ALWAYS the friends/family members of the organisers who win all the good stuff while they smugly carry on reminding everyone what fantastic people they are for giving up their precious time and organising the event etc. I no longer take part in any of it.

I bet someone the organiser was all chummy with had their eye on your prize so they delayed giving it to you until their imaginary cut off point and oh no what a shame now my friend has your prize!

As a Ukrainian family I think I have my own excellent fundraising idea:
For a small fee one of us will attend trips or events organised and attended by people who’ve annoyed you this year guilt tripping saying ‘don’t you know there’s a war in Ukraine…?’. Say their Christmas dinner, and we’ll shout ‘There’s a war on! Yet you sit idle?! Stuffing your face?’ Etc.
Proceeds to Ukraine.

Of course it doesn't mean that nothing else in the world matters. It does however (along with many other bigger things in life) help remind one that it is not worth needlessly blowing up tiny things into massive issues.

Totally get the upset at the missing prize. Lost it at the inappropriate quoting of the lotteries and amusements act to some poor volunteer who has clearly screwed up and probably feels terrible about it.

It is little interactions like this that can really negatively colour a persons life sometimes for days. So unnecessary.

Bloody hell, it's a village Christmas fair. Give it up.