[CQ-Contest] CQ Contest Certificates.

[Randy Thompson K5ZD]

Brian,

You are right that it is expensive to print and mail certificates to
thousands of people per contest.  However, it is worth it when we get
excited emails from new contesters happy to have won their first award.  I
think we can all remember getting our first few certificates and hanging
them proudly on the wall.  Hard for a pdf file to match that!

We have discussed providing a way for contest participants to opt out of
receiving a certificate.  Perhaps they have a box of them or just don't want
to cause us the expense.  

The logical place to do this is by a new field in the Cabrillo file.  So
far, the people who maintain the Cabrillo file "standard" have not been
interested in adding a new tag.  Perhaps some more support would encourage
them to change their mind.

Should there be one new tag that says "don't send certificates or plaques or
anything"?  Or should be there be two?  One for no certificates and another
for no plaques/awards?  Or could it be as simple as a convention that says
if there is no address provided then don't send anything?


73

Randy, K5ZD

PS - Hoping for good conditions and lots of certificate/plaque winners in
the CQWW in just 8 days!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: CQ-Contest [mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of
> brian coyne
> Sent: Wednesday, October 31, 2012 9:19 PM
> To: CQ CONTEST
> Subject: [CQ-Contest] CQ Contest Certificates.
> 
> On the morning of the ssb contest the mailman delivered two certificates
> from CQ, always nice to get them. One was for CQWW CW 2011 the other for
> CQWW SSB 2011.
> 
> Looking at that mail got me to thinking about the expense incurred by CQ
> Mag in sending us these for free. Two A4 envelopes two lots of postal
> charges, the logistics of stuffing the envelopes, taking them to the
> mailing centre not to mention the task of hand signing them when there
> must be many hundreds if not into the thousand of these certificates for
> both contests. All businesses benefit from cost reducing measures and CQ
> organisation is no exception to that.
> 
> I would venture that the majority of entrants have facilities to print e-
> certificates, perhaps something could be included in the cabrillo header
> or the soabox to the effect that an e-certificate will be acceptable.
> 
> Just my thoughts anyway.
> 
> 73  Brian 5B4AIZ / C4Z.
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