foxriverat
New member
Wow. Glad I didnt make it. I live about 5 miles away. Would have been my first swap. But thing came up. I was thinking there might have been some great deals on stuff.
I've been to a few of them now, but the last one I went to was a few years ago. I remember it being a great time! I think the real problem here is jcarlisle not taking the comments seriously. His reply was "i think what you are saying is silly." For the sake of those who can't read that thread now, the guy that bought $300 worth of tickets won a mountain of stuff, including a Nuvo and a biocube, two big powerheads and a bunch of additives. He posted a pic. When we voiced our opinion on forums.cmas.net, jcarlisle flippantly dismissed our comments, deleted most of them and locked the thread.
Yes the guy did buy $300 dollar worth of frags. I am also a Paid member and spent $20 of my hard earn money and I help pull raffle tickets don't know why it's a problem becasue a Guy spend $300 in raffle tickets to win prizes? I am sure anyone else if the money was available would do the same... Heck I know I would if the money was there. He's a Volunteer just like if anyone else were to volunteer there time and effort.... I didn't win Jack but i'm not crying about it.
Another example of bad imaging this time from a CMAS moderator.
Yes the guy did buy $300 dollar worth of frags. I am also a Paid member and spent $20 of my hard earn money and I help pull raffle tickets don't know why it's a problem becasue a Guy spend $300 in raffle tickets to win prizes? I am sure anyone else if the money was available would do the same... Heck I know I would if the money was there. He's a Volunteer just like if anyone else were to volunteer there time and effort.... I didn't win Jack but i'm not crying about it.
I sure am and I am also a Member and I can voice my opinion just like everyone else.... :wavehand:
You dont honestly see a problem with someone buying 3-5 hundred dollars worth of tickets? This was supposed to be a fun raffle, not a contest to see who has the most disposible income. Not everyone, (like me), that goes to this event has that much extra cash lying around where you can just go and corner the market on all the big ticket items just becase you can. If you are that well off where you can go and throw away that much money on raffle tickets, you probably can afford to go and purchase that stuff yourself. There needs to be a limit on the amount of tickets that you can purchase, there also needs to be a better way to draw the winning tickets. How many of the multiple prizes were won by the same person?!? I remember the heaters, some of the pumps, and gift certificates to name a few.
What does his being a volunteer have to do with it? My point is that him buying a huge amount of tickets greatly reduced the odds of others winning. I simply suggested that a limit to the number of tickets an individual could purchase would help. On the other forum that suggestion was literally dismissed without discussion and called silly by a CMAS official.
We had the same situation here at work a couple years ago. We did a 50/50 raffle and normally the winner would take home about $350. One lady started buying $100 worth of tickets and won nearly every time. That started ****ing off the other employees so they stopped buying tickets. That led to lower revenue from the 50/50 raffle, as the other half of the money went to charity. They decided to try a $20 limit to the ticket sales. The next week almost 100 people bought $20 worth of tickets. Since then the same person has not won twice and everyone is happy.
Yes the guy did buy $300 dollar worth of frags. I am also a Paid member and spent $20 of my hard earn money and I help pull raffle tickets don't know why it's a problem becasue a Guy spend $300 in raffle tickets to win prizes? I am sure anyone else if the money was available would do the same... Heck I know I would if the money was there. He's a Volunteer just like if anyone else were to volunteer there time and effort.... I didn't win Jack but i'm not crying about it./I didn't buy raffle but i too would have been discouraged. It just puts a bad taste in peoples mouth. This gentleman should have been more considerate.
On another note, I really hope that you are not a moderator speaking like this...personally I wouldn't want you on my board. You have to be a little more professional when speaking to people who may feel differently than you on certain issues. You sometimes need to put yourself in someone elses shoes.
I'm not here to full shoes I'm a volunteer.... I'll leave it at that... Not here to argue about an issue that I have no control over....
I didn't buy raffle but i too would have been discouraged. It just puts a bad taste in peoples mouth. This gentleman should have been more considerate.
On another note, I really hope that you are not a moderator speaking like this...personally I wouldn't want you on my board. You have to be a little more professional when speaking to people who may feel differently than you on certain issues. You sometimes need to put yourself in someone elses shoes.
Not here to argue about an issue that I have no control over....
This has come up in the past - Do you know where the "Uncle Carl Special" that has been discussed came from? Uncle Carl (sorry if you spell your name with a K) ALWAYS buys $100 of tickets at these things. He wins a lot of stuff. Some of it is sold, some of it is used.
I understand where everyone is coming from. To an outside person, throwing in $20 for a raffle seems like a lot of money. Its simple a gamble. If you are not aware that there are multiple people throwing in $100+ the odds are changed dramatically. I don't know how this raffle was run, but normally you can see how many tickets are in each box (if you can't see, no one stops you from picking them up and shaking them). The big prizes always have tons of tickets and someone always puts a lot of money into them when they want them.
Based on experience, I pick and choose how to gamble at these things. Most of the times I throw a ticket or two into the big prizes and try to put tickets into the stuff that I have a better chance of winning. Lots of times I walk out a winner, but sometimes I walk out a loser.
I missed this swap and feel bad that people left with this bad taste in their mouth. I also understand why they have it. I think they should do a grand prize door prize in the future - this might help people feel that it was a little more fair. 1 ticket per entry. Volunteers that don't pay to get in, don't get a ticket. If they pay, then they can have one too. This is my constructive criticism that is lending a solution to both sides arguments (I happened to see the other thread before it got locked). I also think this solution could be a "need not be present to win" type of thing. Allow so many days to claim the prize and then do another drawing if the it un-claimed. I have also heard the "must be present to win" complaint before and understand it as well.
I truly think that the CMAS staff is doing their best to run the club on the limited resources. I am sure it could be done better, but they are working with what they have. I also know that the people providing feedback did it with an honest heart as well. Hopefully, both sides can step away and allow emotions to subside and find a common ground to improve the next event.
I try to remember that the raffle is more for the club to make money than to just give out stuff to the swap. I am sure they lose money from some people who realize the odds are just not good unless you spend a lot. It would be interesting for them to do a poll that finds out how many people had a bad taste and will not participate in the raffle at the next swap? Unfortunately, I would guess that it is a limited number and they would lose more money by limiting the number of tickets. Its the old tax argument - tax the rich more or less - but we wont get into that because its politics and against the UA!
I agree it is a gamble, nothing is for certain, and im not crying, but try and make things fair and consistant and there would be
Trust me I wish it was fair. I wanted to win the Nuvo tank and I put all 30 of my tickets to increase my chances of winning... Well I didn't win :-(.