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No

20 (27.8%)

Yes, if the raffle ticket price was $5 per chance

16 (22.2%)

Yes, if the raffle ticket was $10 per chance

19 (26.4%)

Yes, if the raffle ticket was $20 per chance

4 (5.6%)

Yes, price of raffle ticket does not matter

13 (18.1%)

Total Members Voted: 68

[Trooper]

Me worrying about what I say about the Product...that's a good one!

Bentley is right on in this comment. 
You can be a very good friend, and, If at a competition, he will tell you exactly what he thinks of your finished product.

I guess that why I like him. I’d like to be more that way myself.

[Mikro]

My only problem with this is, if one person decides to buy (10) tickets @$10 each and everyone else buys (1) ticket @ $10, say a total of $1000 need to raise. This would mean only 100 tickets available. Then this one individual has a 10% chance to win where as the others have a 1% chance. I know the odds are each ticket is worth 1%. This seems it could be skewed by multiple entries by one individual though since there would be a finite amount of tickets.  The figures are for example only.

That being said, I would be interested if this is somehow taken into account to balance the chance for everyone that chooses to participate.

Just my 0.02 cents.
MK

[yorkdude]

Mikro, that is also a valid point.
Could maybe limit it to 2? Per member or something like that.
Super nice though to see this much interest.

[Kristin Meredith]

Someone will need to explain to me what mechanism there is to:

1.  Sell tickets on line that folks can purchase with a credit or debit card
2.  Will generate a list of who bought a ticket and how many they bought
3.  Will return or credit their card if not enough sold
4.  Will not charge a service fee for doing this.

I didn't think anything like this existed, but my experience is very limited.

[dk117]

this has been pretty well hashed out, but am going to leave my two cents for all it's worth.

I have no interest in the uuni.  However I would purchase a $100 ticket if you were performing a product test of Gator Pit PC2036.  You'd be looking in excess of $3K including shipping to you and then to the winner.    At $10 a pop I don't know if we have enough active and $$$ flush members.

My point is twofold. 
1) I am not sure I could pay for product reviews for which I have no interest.   
2) The products I'm interested in learning more (I'm a pelletfan looking upmarket from my first pit as I suspect many here are) are expensive.

DK

PS I had to add a PS because my vote was a flat no, when in reality, something closer to what slaga proposed (accounting for ... I'm not going to put down $10 or $100 and wait a year for said performance testing while others get around to contributing.   Honor system says when critical mass is established, everyone pitches in within a week of being notified).   I do think there is potential here if details and rules are established. 

[Free Mr. Tony]

You could do a live broadcast of you picking the winner.

[slaga]

My only problem with this is, if one person decides to buy (10) tickets @$10 each and everyone else buys (1) ticket @ $10, say a total of $1000 need to raise. This would mean only 100 tickets available. Then this one individual has a 10% chance to win where as the others have a 1% chance. I know the odds are each ticket is worth 1%. This seems it could be skewed by multiple entries by one individual though since there would be a finite amount of tickets.  The figures are for example only.

That being said, I would be interested if this is somehow taken into account to balance the chance for everyone that chooses to participate.

Just my 0.02 cents.
MK

I would not want to risk losing out on a performance test or review (or a chance to win the item) because there were not enough people willing to buy tickets, especially if a few were willing to buy enough tickets to bring us to the total number of tickets needed.

If the ticket sales have a month-long time frame, as suggested earlier, I can see limiting it for a couple weeks so that everyone that wants a chance to participate, can. If all the tickets are not sold after a couple weeks, then open up the limit so anyone can buy as many tickets as they want.

Someone will need to explain to me what mechanism there is to:

1.  Sell tickets on line that folks can purchase with a credit or debit card
2.  Will generate a list of who bought a ticket and how many they bought
3.  Will return or credit their card if not enough sold
4.  Will not charge a service fee for doing this.

I didn't think anything like this existed, but my experience is very limited.

I cannot help with 1 through 3 but #4 is pretty simple. Any service fee would be rolled up into the cost to run the raffle. You sell enough tickets to cover all of your costs, including any service fees, insured shipping to the raffle winner, etc. Maybe the first few raffles you build up a small account so when you have a raffle that does not have enough interest, you can return all of the moneys paid and pay the service fee from that account.

[MP09]

Great idea. I'm in.

[Kristin Meredith]

I looked at GoFundMe.  There are fees:  "The GoFundMe platform is free. Standard payment processing fee of 2.9% plus $0.30 per donation allows for credit card processing and safe transfer of funds."  It was unclear to me who paid those fees.

And I saw no mechanism to refund.  So it seems to me that if the campaign did not meet the goals, I would have to take the money, transfer to my bank and then write and mail checks to everyone.  But again, I have no experience with this, so maybe I got it wrong?

[WiPelletHead]

I looked at GoFundMe.  There are fees:  "The GoFundMe platform is free. Standard payment processing fee of 2.9% plus $0.30 per donation allows for credit card processing and safe transfer of funds."  It was unclear to me who paid those fees.

And I saw no mechanism to refund.  So it seems to me that if the campaign did not meet the goals, I would have to take the money, transfer to my bank and then write and mail checks to everyone.  But again, I have no experience with this, so maybe I got it wrong?

Fees are typically paid by the seller. (In this case it would be you or Bentley)

For a 10.00 purchase the fee would be 59 cents.

So if the money would need to be refunded I think you are correct. Deposit in your account and need to send checks for a refund. Deducting any costs from the refund would be fair IMHO.

Just a thought, if you have free bill pay with your account, your bank would send the check saving on costs. I use mine all the time to save on postage and envelopes.

[Bentley]

Her point is...if it has to be refunded, she does not want to go buy 30 envelopes, and 30 stamps and write 30 checks and address 30 envelopes.

In my best Yule Brenner voice...etc, etc, etc.

[Free Mr. Tony]

I looked at the PayPal site. The fees mentioned above are standard PayPal fees. You can setup a PayPal business account, and the fees can be paid on either side. It appears that you can refund through PayPal without any transferring hassle. Probably just a small transaction fee.

It does seem the simplest at this point. Set up the account. Take payments, and assign a number. Use a random number generator to pick the winner.

If you guys would like me to run the finances of this while you do the tests, I can look into setting up what we need to make it work. Let me know.

[SmokinPete55]

gotta agree with FMT . paypal  . if it doesn't work out you'll have easy access to everybody's info and then just click click to return .

you can also just leave the funds in your paypal acct until you need to transfer it to pay for the unit . might not have to transfer if the seller takes paypal .

[Chashub]

I had never heard of the uuni 3 before this survey. I looked it up on Amazon and it seems pretty cool. I would buy a ticket, or 2, for this, or any other raffle that I had an interest in. If you don't have any interest in the product, don't buy a ticket. You would get an honest review and a chance to get said product for a fraction of the cost. I spend a couple of bucks every week on powerball. I'm a big gambler in that regard. Haha!
Charlie

[Kristin Meredith]

OK folks, we discussed this and are willing to give it a go under these terms:

1.  The folks who think they will participate need to come up with the rules.  Need some consensus, not a 100% agreement.  I can start a new thread if you all want to post your recommendations.

2.  By rules I mean -- price of a ticket, how many tickets one person can buy, how long the tickets are for sale and any other areas you need to address.

3.  Total price -- you don't need to include money for pizza or pellets.  Bent would eat pizza every night I think.  So buying and making pizza has been part of this household for a long time.  You do need to make sure you have covered the cost of the pizza oven, any taxes and shipping to any location for the winner.

4.  Because he volunteered and because we know him personally, Free Mr. Tony will set up and run the paypal and notify us when all monies are received and the raffle is to be conducted.

5.  Bent and I will run the drawing for the winning ticket and will broadcast it live at a time we hope the majority can agree to.

Folks can post if they would like to proceed on these terms and I will start a "rules" thread.