Unofficial GPC Cage/Habitat Builder Competition?

[Myspoiltpiggies]

This is a really good idea - well done for thinking it up!

I love taking part in this sort of thing.

 

[JarBax]

I love the idea of members donating prizes, and also the Oxbow/KM idea. How would shipping work out - if they agreed to support us? Would they be willing to ship long distance/abroad?

 

[WEAVER]

I understand what you are saying Jarbax, and that could also get pretty expensive for the ones who actually are donating their items. Maybe to make it fair and have more people willing to donate pig related items, the winners could pay for the shipping costs when they win the item.

 

[Slave to the Wheek]

I thought about that one month idea. But here the idea from my perspective.

I don't think we would have any problems with 4-6 months for entry period. Just because I don't come to GPC as often as I once did doesn't mean I'm not fully engaged in caring for my piggies and working on my cage. I think building an awesome cage worthy of winning an award takes a lot of research and sometimes several configurations. We should reward those who inspire us to do a better job, even if they aren't active on the forums.

Very few of us get "right" on the first try, and most of us reconfigure cages to correct problems from our previous build. We add on, we fix ramps, we try to find a way to not only make it functional, but to also make it pretty. I think that we are all in the search of cage designs that we can look up too. Cages that inspire us to create a magnificent thing. We often give up and say, "that's good enough for now, until I can figure out how to make it better" I think having this competetion, would give us all impetus to push ourselves to finally fix that thing that's been bugging us. For me, it's the color of my coroplast, it's the way my upper cage attaches to my lower cage. It's the second cage quilt I need to sew for the upper level, it's adding wheels on the lower level to make it movable to vacuum under, it's coming up with a useful way to store things under it that looks good. Gosh, I could go on probably but those are projects that I still wanted to do, but can't get motivated because right now it works "fine" like it is.

I've also been thinking about non-GPC members. If someone comes in JUST to enter their cage I think we should honor that. Building a cage, taking pictures and posting them is a lot of work. Giving them to this site to share with us is also a gift, so I think they should be allowed to participate, even if they don't post on the forums. By building a CC cage, they are in effect furthering one of the goals of THIS particular site.

I joined GPC back in April when I got my first pig. Once I had researched and felt comfortable that I knew enough, I quit coming to the board. Right now, I'm only visiting a lot because I'm off work, and once I get to working again I will probably not be visiting often. Even when I visited before, I seldom posted. This doesn't mean that I'm not working on my cage and trying to improve on things. I think this is common on message boards, with new people coming in, spending a long time learning and then only returning when they have problems in the future. Sometimes people get tired of forums and just stop going because they get bored with the content.

The way I see it, a month isn't long enough to give new people a chance to get the materials together and come up with a "competitive" design.

Wait. Maybe I'm thinking of this wrong.

Maybe we could have a month to have entries post, but we could spend additional months announcing it, and promoting it so that cavy folks all over the internet could decide to upgrade existing cages so that they could enter. I don't want to encourage people to come up with designs that aren't functional or safe just to get entered.

What I don't like is catering to those who aren't serious enough about their pet ownership that they can't wait for a couple months for their cages to be judged, or ignoring those who may not be active on the board but are still "keeping on the good work" at home.

 

[Slave to the Wheek]

Hmm. I've been thinking about other things -- here are some random thoughts:


No one has commented on "nominations". Do you think that would be a good idea? Folks who are nominated, and accepted by the commitee/judges wouldn't have to pay a fee to enter. It means that someone on the committee found the cage, and wants to have them join the competition. This way, folks who are not GPC Forum members, but have use GPC guidelines are also eligible. I'm not sure what I think about someone who can't afford $10 for an entry fee. Of course, entry fees would be weird for international people too and that would have to be addressed.

I visit several other forums and I think we need to be the ones to "up" the standards that is for sure.

I'm not sure that charging anything the first year is feasable yet, the first year, it might be good to just have people post their cages, and we do the nominating. I do think that we need to find a way to come up with some good prizes, entry fees aren't required for that if we can get a couple of sponsors to provide prizes. I'm learly of having members offer up awards since it's so easy for people to flake on promises..we would have to be careful of "service" type awards from members and stick to solid touchable merchandise we can show as one of the awards.

A "free" pass into the enclave of donation makers? I am a bit torn over that as "prize". If someone wanted have that access they would seek it it seems. If someone paid a $10 fee, wouldn't they technically be making a donation anyway? I don't know how that "membership" thing works though.

I think the fee would be a one time fee to enter the contest rather than a fee for each category. You would pay $10 or whatever, and it would cover any and all categories. The judges would decide which cages fall into which category. For example, a cage that is not going to be able to compete with others, may have an innovative ramp. The judges would place the ramp into the ramp competition, and the cage would be left out of competition.

Oh, and I definitely think that ALL cages in the competition must be APPROVED before being allowed to post. They need to meet certain basic criteria that will have to be determined. Things like, min footage for amount of pigs, being movable without falling apart, having an approved substrate, approved caging materials etc. I don't want to have people post up cages that aren't good examples that would inspire us. We can leave those cages to the regular galleries and forum posts.

 

[homeschoolmama]

This sounds so cool! I have one question... is this for brand new cages, or do preexisting ones count? For example, I just reconfigured our old cage and put it back into use. Would something like that count, or are you looking for wholly new cages?

I don't know that I could enter anyway - see I'd need a special entry; something like "most original copycat" since my inspiration was from another board member. (grinning sheepishly)
love,
mom

 

[fashion victim]

I think this is an awesome idea! I also like the idea of charging an entering fee, but I know that my parents would never write me a check to send or Paypal some money, even if it was my money, so I could enter. Which would leave me and others who might be in a similar situation, out of this whole very fun sounding contest. I just thought I share that for consideration.

Same thing with my own parents. If the site accepted money orders then it's much easier, because you can get them from any post office. You pay a small fee (less than 2 dollars) for the money order and hand them the amount of money you want it to have. Then you mail the money order to the rescue's address or whatever address they tell you. I've done this when my mom asks me to go to the post office to pick up the letters because there's no parking outside and since she can't see me I have free rein to buy the money order. Make sure there's not a large line to buy it or your parents may get suspicious. I've used excuses like "I was giving back a letter with the wrong address" or "I had to use the bathroom first". I know it's very sneaky, but hey, it was my own money so I had every right.

 

[Slave to the Wheek]

Same thing with my own parents. If the site accepted money orders then it's much easier, because you can get them from any post office. You pay a small fee (less than 2 dollars) for the money order and hand them the amount of money you want it to have. Then you mail the money order to the rescue's address or whatever address they tell you. I've done this when my mom asks me to go to the post office to pick up the letters because there's no parking outside and since she can't see me I have free rein to buy the money order. Make sure there's not a large line to buy it or your parents may get suspicious. I've used excuses like "I was giving back a letter with the wrong address" or "I had to use the bathroom first". I know it's very sneaky, but hey, it was my own money so I had every right.

I'm sure we will figure something out. Did you read my post about nominating?

 

[fashion victim]

I'm sure we will figure something out. Did you read my post about nominating?

You mean the second one in this page? Yes, I did. I understand what you mean by the 10 dollars. Perhaps a smaller donation would work, along the lines of 8, so that the donations don't come into conflict with the memberships. And as for other countries, perhaps a suggested donation like someone else said here would be appropiate, unless someone sits down and calculates the exchange rates of the equivalent of 10 dollars in the currency of the different countries in which members reside. Or to make it easier, only provide the exchange rate for only people who say they want to participate instead of finding it out for every single country.

Edit- I think it's best if some sort of donation is involved because without this site there wouldn't be a contest anyway. We'd also be using up the space T pays for to host the contest, so it's only fair she gets something back, and remember this is not money for her, but for the rescue she runs. As for the prize, I think if the contest was under T's jurisdiction then she's is going to keep her word. I honestly would trust all the mods and at least the members who pay for subscription. If they say there's a price then I'm sure they will comply if you happen to win it.

 

[Cassidy forever]

I Would love to do it but my dad dislikes rodents and wouldn't even cosider something like this>( . I would definitley say yes though!

 

[fourbwabbys]

I'm in the process of thinking up a re-build for my cage. I'd love to enter the contest.