First: Thanks to the moderation team!!! Up to now I won three times:

1. Cool Brands 2011/2012: Nice reading including my BV 8 (now my sister's)
2. BeoSound 5: What a nice Christmas present!
3. Struer trip 2012!!!

The third was the most important experience for me worth quite a bit more than 30 £ a year. My recommendation: Prize draw only if the team does not have to invest its own money. More opportunities of meeting in real life (Annual meeting in Struer? Local meetings? Meetings at certain venues with B&O like IFA, CES (for me a little bit too far from home, as Peter Parker would say)). PS: This forum helped me much to make the right decisions concerning buying B&O items, avoiding disappointments.  

Reading this thread had reminded me to renew my gold membership which I’d left to lapse and never got around to renewing. To me this forum is worth far more than £30, even though though I never post, as it’s a gold mine of information and great for seeing how others are getting on with the latest product releases, etc.

To echo the comments of others, a huge thank you to Keith, Lee, and the team for the time they invest in keeping this site running, I’m sure it’s a never ending task, and one that takes up more spare time than we imagine.

With regards to the question of the prize draw, whilst maintaining this quarterly might encourage others to upgrade from the free level, if this is becoming cost prohibitive (Lee, you shouldn’t be buying the prizes from your own pocket in my opinion), could the number of prizes be reduced to say just 3, or if this doesn’t financially stack up, then like some have suggested, reducing these to a Summer and Christmas draw might be a good alternative if the finances allow.

So far all is said already what I could add here, but explicitely I want as well say „many thanks“ to Lee and Keith for the effort to keep the forum and Beoworld up and running! But also to the moderators and all the people here for the posts, information, and providing fun to read through the threads. I did create my account in 2008 when I started collecting and repairing  things. From beginning on I recognized here a really enthusiastic, nice and authentic community. I was also active in an  automobile forum, but the spirit here (also to other hifi forums) is much more relaxed, kind and funny. I did perform the upgrade because of the schematics and to support the effort. I did not hope to win anything, so it was really a pleasure to win double in one price draw - again, many thanks :-)

To come back, I would also as many others propose a slight increase of the Gold fee and then rather to skip one price draw.  BTW: Facebook groups are no option for me :-)

 

Lee- Keith and all the Mod's , thanks for all your work.

The prizes are not important but I did win 3 times.

Increase the price of membership and reduce prizes to once a year.

I cannot believe it was 10 years ago since the trip to Struer.

Keep up the good work .

Hello Lee and Keith,

Apologies for the delay in replying. Like everyone else I would like to thank you for all the time and effort you put in to running and organising this site.

I would like the prize draw to continue in some form - whether it remains quarterly or moves to twice yearly or perhaps just annually. Furthermore, I am more than willing - even in these hard times - to accept an increase in subscription to cover the cost of these draws.

Andrew

 

Hi Lee,

Firstly, I can only echo all the praise and positive things that have already been said - I am extremely impressed that this site is still up and running and looking so good, given the minuscule resources behind it. Very well done!

As for the question, I would vote for Option  Bi-annual draw, and although I love the prize draw, I mostly use the page for the manuals and the ability to ask questions in the forum on all matters related to B&O.

 

Hi LEE & KEITH,

Thanks for everything you both are doing to keep this great site going.

I am more than willing to pay more for gold membership, and would be happy with once a year draw or whatever you think is best.

I like others joined for information etc., and not for the draw.

I'm sure you will come up with a solution when you both meet !!!

 

Keith, Lee and Steve,

Thank you for your effort and resources to support Beoworld and the forum. From my point of view, the main value is the combined knowlege in the community, and access to the service manuals and older user manuals. As such, the prize draw is not important. However, a decline of members — and knowlege — to support the site may be likely to accelerate without some kind of a carrot. Accordingly I am in favour of an annual or bi-annual prize draw as long as it can be carried out and be self-sustaining. Furthermore, a raise in the membership fees should be considered.

Hopefully I will be able to visit beoworld archives and the forum for many years to come, as I have done since the very start.

Best of luck,

Sverre

I joined Beoworld in 2015(not sure).Whenever I needed advice,I have got friendly advice from the members.And that is great about forum.Regarding prize draw,reduce it to annual draw(around Christmas) and reduce number of prizes to 3,if that will be of help.

 

Hello Everyone, and thank you for your input. Some extremely valid points and some surprising insights which I genuinely didn't expect.

I left it as long as possible to get everyone's thoughts, then had a short last-minute holiday followed by a very busy work schedule which has pushed this reply out a little further than I'd hoped for - but.. here we are.

I met with Keith yesterday and we discussed the finances of the site going forwards, and also took into account the input here to come to the conclusion that the Prize Draw is an appreciated 'Bonus' which brings happiness and good feeling to individuals - and also the site as a whole.

As a result, we have decided to keep the Prize Draw - but make it Annual, at a time where we all love a good present.. Christmas.

I was actually surprised to see so many people simply favoured the survival of BeoWorld over the Prize Draw as I thought this was a pretty pivotal thing when deciding to upgrade to Gold. I was clearly pretty wrong, which actually points to the fact that you're all selfless and simple want to support the site. I found this quite heartwarming and am actually embarrassed at how wrong I was.

So, the Spring Draw will go ahead this evening as usual - and the next one will be in December.  After that, the next one will be Christmas 2024.  Taking this into account we will increase the values of the Prizes slightly. Nothing silly-expensive, but it'll give us a whole year to pick up bargains and the really rare collectibles which we all appreciate as B&O enthusiasts.

So, in conclusion - if revenues stay the same we can keep the draw.  The next obstacle is to try to increase revenue which will pay for site improvements, software licences, power and hardware upgrades and servicing, and so on.  I'll do a separate post for this, again to garner input and ideas - and we also came up with some ideas yesterday which I'll put to you.

Thank you all once again for your valuable input - and Good Luck in the Draw this evening!