Recognise your fellow Mumsnetters by nominating your favourite Mumsnet user to win Silent Pool gin

[AbbiCMumsnet]

To tie in with their new #FortheSpirited campaign, Silent Pool Gin is on a quest to unearth the UK’s most spirited characters – and the search starts right here. For two months, the award-winning distillers will be celebrating the spirit of Mumsnet by getting you to nominate the users who you think show the most – well – spirit. They'll be giving one bottle of gin per week to a winning Mumsnet user. In addition, if your nominee wins, you'll also receive a shopping voucher worth £30..

Here’s what Silent Pool Gin have to say:
“For the spirited. Three small words that capture the essence of Silent Pool Gin. It represents our independent mindset and our uncompromising commitment to producing a gin with a refreshingly individual character.

For the spirited is about following your own path. Embracing life and living for the best things it has to offer. It’s about doing something kind, inspiring, creative, different. Could be finally handing in your notice, booking that round-the-world trip, starting that new Japanese course or even just deciding to make your very first post on AIBU.

Whatever your version of ‘spirited' is, we applaud you. However, applause only gets you so far, so to officially recognise the wonderful achievements of the Mumsnet community, we are launching the Silent Pool Gin For the Spirited award. Each week, one lucky Mumsnet member will be recognised as a kindred spirit and will win one bottle of Silent Pool Gin.

Also we’d love to hear your spirited stories so please tag us in at #forthespirited @silentpoolgin”

There's no such thing as a best Mumsnet user but you probably have your favourite(s). Is there someone: Whose posts you always read? Who brightens your days and whose views keep you glued to the screen? Who has given you priceless advice, yet you wouldn't know from Adam in real life?

Every week for two months, Silent Pool will be giving the #FortheSpirited award to one lucky Mumsnet user – with the prize of a bottle of gin. Simply nominate your favourite Mumsnet user on the discussion thread and they'll be in with a chance of winning. In turn, if your nominee wins, you'll also receive a £30 voucher. Win, win (gin) .

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

[EDITED BY MNHQ TO INCLUDE FURTHER DETAILS ABOUT THE DESPATCH OF PRIZES]

Terms and conditions of prize draw:
Activity specific T&Cs: Mumsnet will run a random prize draw once per week. The nominees within the winning entries will be contacted via email or PM to inform them of the win, and to ask if they would like to receive the prize. A non-alcoholic prize will also be available if desired. To receive an alcoholic prize, nominees will need to provide a copy of photographic ID to Mumsnet (eg a photograph of a passport or driving licence), as well as a physical name and address for the prize to be dispatched to. The name and address will be shared with Silent Pool Gin, with the user's permission. Mumsnet will dispose of this information within one week of users' receipt of the prize. Posters of the winning entries will be emailed by Mumsnet to inform them of the win, and to give them the opportunity to choose the voucher they would like. Their name and email address, with the user's permission, will be shared with Mumsnet's voucher fulfilment company for the purposes of ordering the voucher. Voucher winner's details will be retained for audit purposes. Winner's details will be used for the purpose of the prize draw and prize delivery only, and not for any other marketing purpose. Standard Mumsnet T&Cs can be found here.

[POST EDITED BY MNHQ to remove language around 'courage' and 'bravery']

Why have I had my nomination deleted?
I didn't even swear!
HelenaDove is mine if it's permitted

Fuck me, did someone click their heels and say 'there's no place like school'?

@mnhq

Do you have any comments on how this thread has turned out?

Especially confirming that as you can have a 'who is your favourite MNetter' thread, we can too, with no fear of deletion (policy change)

Or are you re-considering this whole promo?

"What I'm also finding odd is that about 10 people have been nominated umpteen times and then only about 20 or so more have been nominated at least once. I thought that this site now had thousands and thousands of users."

Call me cynical, but the groups who are known to 'meet' elsewhere on the net are ikely to have a plan for theirs to 'win'.

The same few names come up on these sorts of threads (before deletion) the whole time. MN cliques remain.

And it's not just longevity - some people who never/rarely NC never get a mention. Not everyone is likeable. These threads can show it up quite sharply, and reinforce the idea of MN Royalty

Big Ones @00100001

Need a bit more support .

Out of curiosity, could I start a "who's your favourite mner" thread right now, inclusive of those who are potentially not fond of gin or have alcohol problems?

And it wouldn't be deleted as not in the spirit?

Meditrina - a fair few mners know who I am in person, and I still have zero nominations. I must just be a bit of an arsehole

If it goes to ‘post of the week’ then you may as well cancel all the nominations for TwitterQueen

She’s been unwell? And is barely posting. And very few of her posts are on high-traffic threads, or are in themselves stand-out, exciting or individually memorable.

That’s not what makes her a great MNetter. It’s cumulative kindness, and recognition of everything she has done this year (in circumstances I hope will not be repeated)

I’m beginning to really regret coming anywhere near this thread, though I want to thank @DeRigueurMortis for her kind post

I am surprised it is still going . I was waiting for the deletion message .
I have not nominated anyone although I do appreciate a lot of posters .

"Need a bit more support"

( )( )

better?

Every week for two months, Silent Pool will be giving the #FortheSpirited award to one lucky Mumsnet user – with the prize of a bottle of gin. Simply nominate your favourite Mumsnet user

Two months = 8 bottles of gin. Surely we have 8 'favourites' mentioned now on this thread. Can you not just give all of them a bottle of gin now and put an end to this farce ?

Then you can start a 'who's your least favourite MNer' competition and send the winners a can of Irn Bru.

And it wouldn't be deleted as not in the spirit?

It would be deleted for not flogging spirits.

000100001, nice 🥥🥥.

Nice tassells @00100001

Mmmm , I like a bit of thread derailing !

I am impressed @KurriKurri .. correct spelling of yir ither nashonal drink ! I did see it as Iran Bru juat the other day ...probably autocorrected .
( I am Scottish btw )

just

D'you know, as someone who has been nominated, it's actually surprisingly hurtful to read that other posters think there's a plan to get people nominated

... which also demonstrates how divisive and unpleasant these threads become.

Although I'll still accept the gin if MNHQ send me any

Hello

As Michael said yesterday, we're sorry we've upset some of you with this.

Couple of things to clear up: first, Silent Pool aren't paying us any money for this - believe it or not this was our (MNHQ's) idea and the aim is to do something nice for MNers and spread a bit of happiness . Silent Pool (who sponsor our podcast) were just generous enough to step in with the offer of the free gin - no money has changed hands over this at all.

Our original idea was for the gin to go to 'the MNer who most deserves a surprise treat this week' - something along the lines of the old Xmas Appeal where MNers could recognise people who'd had a tough time/been particularly lovely/made you bark with laughter on the bus. Unfortunately that point got a bit lost along the way and we've ended up with the dreaded 'fave MNer' metric instead, basically down to a failure of communication at MNHQ between the various teams involved. (Can we get away with blaming the hot weather?)

Just on a point of order: 'who's your fave MNer' threads aren't actually banned (there are very few 'types' of thread that are automatically disallowed). It's just that they tend to go pear-shaped, so often end up being deleted for that reason.

We know lots of MNers have difficult relationships with alcohol for various reasons. We try to be mindful of that while recognising that gin/wine o'clock jokes have a long history on MN and are for better or worse a part of the fabric of the community (and indeed we at MNHQ have been the grateful recipients of crateloads of the stuff from MNers at some difficult moments in our history). There isn't an easy way to resolve that tension tbh but we are aware of it and obviously don't want to crash about making people's lives difficult, while also recognising that quite a lot of you would rather appreciate a surprise bottle in the post. Answers on a postcard to that one - it goes without saying we wouldn't want to force a bottle of alcohol on anyone who didn't want it and we were intending to check before actually putting the things in the post.

On the ASA guidelines: the intention is to recognise MNers who already have 'spirit', not to imply that a G and T will make you spirited. If we were to do this again we'd probably not use the words 'courage' and 'bravery' just to avoid muddying the waters, and we'll bear that in mind in any future alcohol references. We'll edit the opening post to that effect (we'll also add a note to explain that it's been edited).

And finally... we like the idea of 'post of the week' as suggested here and are tempted to use that as the metric going forwards. Or we could revert to our original idea of 'MNer who deserves a treat this week'. Let us know what you think. To be fair to the many MNers who've received nominations so far it feels to us that the first prize should go to one of those nominated, but we're happy to change the way we organise this going forwards. Just FYI the plan is to draw at random out of a hat, so multiple nominations etc won't affect this.

Thanks
MNHQ

Simply nominate your favourite Mumsnet user

Yeah, I'd say the original plan got well and truly lost. There's nothing in the OP that implies "deserves a treat" at all 😂😂

Thanks for clarifying RowansMunsnet ( for you).

In that case, I would also like to nominate TwitterQueen1.

I've been on the cancer thread for over a year now, and lots of the posters (including iVampire) have provided invaluable support. I'd go so far as to say that they kept me grounded and sane through the hideous first weeks of diagnosis and prognosis.

As iVampire said we've lost three regulars recently, & TQ is proper poorly, so a bottle of gin in the post might well cheer her up.

Thanks for the epic clarification Rowan

Q though - will multiple nominations get multiple raffle tickets?

Just on a point of order: 'who's your fave MNer' threads aren't actually banned (there are very few 'types' of thread that are automatically disallowed). It's just that they tend to go pear-shaped, so often end up being deleted for that reason.

Surely this thread qualifies for deletion under the Tits Up criterion ?

The old Christmas appeal was all done by private nominations IIRC, - which would be a better approach, if you are determined to have popularity contests.

@BeyondDangerousTshirts

Thanks for the epic clarification Rowan

Q though - will multiple nominations get multiple raffle tickets?

Yeah sorry that was long wasn't it

Think the idea is to treat each nomination/nominee as a pair and draw them out of the hat - so only one nomination will be drawn as a pair with the person they nominated