Last week I wrote about the wonderful concert I attended at Centennial hall where I learned of an awesome Canadian artist Meaghan Smith. Meaghan Smiths Cd was released today “The Crickets Orchestra.” To celebrate I have been contacted  and have the opportunity to offer the great readers of Smart Canucks a chance to win an Autographed Cd of The Crickets Orchestra, along with a limited edition print drawn by Meaghan Smith herself! Also second and third place will be sent a copy of the Cd! How great is that!

Before we get into the contest rules and information heres a bit of info about Meaghan Smith:

Meaghan Smith was born to be a singer. She just didn’t always know it. Meaghan studied animation in pursuit of her drawing (she is also a talented artist), but she just couldn’t get the music out of her system. While in college, she performed secret concerts in front of friends in stairwells and eventually overcame a serious case of stage fright. Soon, she was performing local shows in her adopted home of Halifax where she caught the eye of Warner Music Canada, and ultimately Sire Records in the U.S.

The Cricket’s Orchestra, set for release Today February 9th, cannot be classified into a one genre-specific category. It is neither Pop, Jazz, Folk, or Adult Contemporary. It is all of those. The music is timeless and infectious. At certain moments, it conjures up images of Billie Holiday, and at others, Diana Krall or Norah Jones. When you think you’ve figured it all out, you are thrown a curveball when respected Montréal D.J., Kid Koala scratches a retro groove (on A Little Love). Over the course of the past year, Meaghan has toured with the likes of k.d. lang, Sarah McLaughlin, Ron Sexsmith, Joe Purdy, and most recently Chantal Kreviazuk. Expect more touring plans for early 2010 to be announced shortly.

Contest rules

1. The contest will be open from Today until Monday February 15th 2010 at 11am, to all Canadians

2. Enter simply by posting a comment about Canadian music!

3. You can enter once a day, but only once a day ( We will disqualify if yo do not follow rules.)

4. Winners will be drawn randomly and posted on the blog on February 15 2010 at 12pm

5. Winners will be given my email address to provide home addresses so prizes can be sent out.

Good luck everyone!

Oh and make sure to check back often because I heard theres going to be a contest for a certain Mr. Buble next week… *wink* *wink* ladies…….

“I am greatly moved by the music of the ’20s, ’30s, and ’40s – times when things were pure and simple – so I wanted my music to recall those eras, but I wanted to put my own spin on it.”  
                    – Meaghan Smith

*Bumping because the contest ends soon!

I’m very sorry for my very long absence. School took all of my time and I barely had any free time to do anything else. We’re back to normal now and you should be seeing more contests as well as deals on the blog.

Today’s sponsor is Pediped footwear which I personally think offer superb products. As a child, my Mom would only buy me “medical shoes” and I’ve come to really appreciate this over time since I never suffered from any walking/feet  problems. I like how Pediped go one step further and add the “Fashion” factor to their shoes. Fashionable medical shoes sounds perfect to me!

SmartCanucks Giveaways Day 22: Free shoes from Pediped.com

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any better 😀

Today’s sponsor is Sears Canada. Sears.ca recently launched their new website design and they wanted to take that opportunity to introduce it to you guys. So today they are giving out 2 $50 worth of items to 2 winners, one on the blog and one on the forum.

SmartCanucks Giveaways Day 5: Sears: 2 people win $50 of free items each

Today we’ll be having 2 winners! Each getting $50 worth of items for free from Sears Canada. One winner will be as usual chosen from the blog comments, but the other will be chosen from the forum.

How do I enter the contest?

Click  here to go to Sears.ca and choose the items you like up to a maximum of $50. Then leave a comment on here listing your choice(s) of items. 

For the forum version of this contest please click here

Contest Rules

• 1 entry per household i.e. you may only leave 1 comment on the blog. If you want to discuss anything or share your thoughts please include it in that 1 comment.
• The item you choose cannot be a gift card
• Canada only.
• Contest ends on Monday with the announcement of the next contest.
• You may only win a max of 2 contests throughout the whole giveaways event to give others a chance to win.

About this Contest:

It’s here! SmartCanucks’ BIGGEST CONTEST GIVEAWAYS EVER! Every single weekday until 2010 I’ll be giving out atleast $100 worth of prizes daily!

After the success of the $10 daily contest giveaways we had earlier this year I decided to kick it up a notch… or ten… by giving out $100 daily instead! Of course I couldn’t afford that kind of money since I’m just a graduate student at Queen’s. So I decided to seek sponsors and I was surprised by the huge amount of interest I got. Many people were interested in sponsoring a contest day that we may end up going into January as well.

This contest is not your typical contest however! It’s fun fast and different! Here’s how it’ll work: Everyday we’ll have a contest and the winner(s) will be announced immediately the next day! There’s also another twist to this contest: You will win what you choose! To enter most contests you’ll need to leave a comment with a list of items you want to get! If you win you get these items for free.

You also have a good chance of winning since no person will be allowed to win more than 2 prizes throughout the span of the giveaways. This means that we’ll end up with loads of winners. Winners will be chosen randomly using random number generator.

I’ll stop the contest for a few weeks while I come up with new contest ideas.If you have ideas for contests on SmartCanucks please use the suggest form on the right to let me know 😀

We’ll certainly continue in July. I hope you’ve enjoyed the contests so far? I’ve had a blast! Thank you to all the wonderful contributions. The entries were very enjoyable to read:

• Week 1: Memories
• Week 2: Ways to Save Money
• Week 3: Most Embarrassing Moment
• Week 4: Employees Bite Back!

Winners List (win a $10 Gift Card or PayPal each)

• May 7 Winner: Week 1 Post 109 by Kitty
• May 8 Winner: Week 1 Post 105 by Connie Walsh
• May 9 Winner: Week 1 Post 25 by Maybe
• May 10 Winner: Week 1 Post 139 by Ivan
• May 11 Winner: Week 1 post 93 by vibrantflame
• May 12 Winner:  Week 1 Post 104 by couponmom
• May 13 Winner: Week 1 Post 192 by Mommy of 3
• May 14 Winner: Week 2 Post 104 by FreebieChick
• May 15 Winner: Week 2 Post 106 FunShopper
• May 16 Winner: Week 2 Post 28 by Tammy Hynes
• May 17 Winner: Week 2 Post 4 by mummyto2
• May 18 Winner: Week 2 Post 161 by Nancy
• May 19 Winner: Week 2 Post 41 by layniejoy
• May 20 Winner: Week 2 Post 1 by Ann
• May 21 Winner: Week 3 Post 53 by ThatguyRob
• May 22 Winner: Week 3 Post 74 by buttercup
• May 23 Winner: Week 3 Post 24 by Sara
• May 24 Winner: Week 3 Post 27 by Amy
• May 25 Winner: Week 3 Post 33 by Weeeooojr
• May 26 Winner: Week 3 Post 51 by meee
• May 27 Winner: Week 3 Post 77 by Melody113
• May 28 Winner: Week 4 Post 44 by Adam
• May 29 Winner: Week 4 Post 12 by ginger150
• May 30 Winner: Week 4 Post 14 by tinkb
• May 31 Winner: Week 4 Post 3 by N.M.
• June 1 Winner: Week 4 Post 33 by Smartfood
• June 2 Winner: Week 4 Post 48 by julyprincess
• June 3 Winner: Week 4 Post 51 by Nettie

One of my personal favourite entries was by monkeyincowtown:

Well Boo you’ve opened up a real treasure trove of memories for me with this one! I’ve worked in the service industry for many years and I have countless stories I could tell. However, there is one man in particular who was the nastiest, rudest customer I ever had to serve. Worse yet, he was a regular so I and my fellow servers would have to serve him many times a week. I was working at a very high end restaurant in downtown Vancouver. This man would come in several times a week. He drove a fancy Ferrari, which was always valeted out front, and quite often wore some sort of matching Ferrari clothing item ie: shirt, hat, gloves. Therefore my fellow severs and I referred to him as “Mr. Ferrari” (only amongst ourselves of course, never to his face) So anyways, Mr. Ferrari had man”charming” things that he did. When I asked him how he was and how his day was going he would reply by barking his drink order at me. No niceties for this one, he really could not be bothered to listen you. If I happened to approach his table when he was having a discussion with his powersuit buddies, he would bark out that I was not to be listening to his conversation and make me stand 6 feet away from the table until he was done talking (sometimes I would be standing there for 5 to 10 minutes! (more…)

Last week’s “Most Embarrassing Moment” Contest was extremely fun to read! Thank you sharing all these priceless moments! And a special thank you to Benji for sharing her story which I incidentally read while eating! Check out the Most Embarrassing Moment stories here.

• Week 1 “memories” entries can also be read here
• Week 2 “Ways to Save Money” entries can be read here

This week’s contest is a FUN one again 😀

If you’ve worked in the services industry you know that  most customers are nice and polite., however some are… well… to say it nicely… do not fit into that “polite” category. Tell us about your interesting stories working in the service industry! If you’ve never worked in the service industry tell us an interesting story from your office or whatever environment you work in!

ONLY 1 entry per person this week (but you are welcome to share as many stories as you like and  comment on other’s stories).

New $10 gift card or paypal winner chosen daily. You can’t win more than once.

Winners So Far

• May 7 Winner: Week 1 Post 109 by Kitty
• May 8 Winner: Week 1 Post 105 by Connie Walsh
• May 9 Winner: Week 1 Post 25 by Maybe
• May 10 Winner: Week 1 Post 139 by Ivan
• May 11 Winner: Week 1 post 93 by vibrantflame
• May 12 Winner:  Week 1 Post 104 by couponmom
• May 13 Winner: Week 1 Post 192 by Mommy of 3
• May 14 Winner: Week 2 Post 104 by FreebieChick
• May 15 Winner: Week 2 Post 106 FunShopper
• May 16 Winner: Week 2 Post 28 by Tammy Hynes
• May 17 Winner: Week 2 Post 4 by mummyto2
• May 18 Winner: Week 2 Post 161 by Nancy
• May 19 Winner: Week 2 Post 41 by layniejoy
• May 20 Winner: Week 2 Post 1 by Ann
• May 21 Winner: Week 3 Post 53 by ThatguyRob
• May 22 Winner: Week 3 Post 74 by buttercup
• May 23 Winner: Week 3 Post 24 by Sara
• May 24 Winner: Week 3 Post 27 by Amy
• May 25 Winner: Week 3 Post 33 by Weeeooojr
• May 26 Winner: Week 3 Post 51 by meee
• May 27 Winner: Week 3 Post 77 by Melody113
• May 28 Winner: Week 4 Post 44 by Adam
• May 29 Winner: Week 4 Post 12 by ginger150
• May 30 Winner: Week 4 Post 14 by tinkb
• May 31 Winner: Week 4 Post 3 by N.M.
• June 1 Winner: Week 4 Post 33 by Smartfood
• June 2 Winner: Week 4 Post 48 by julyprincess
• June 3 Winner: Week 4 Post 48 by Nettie

Winners Please send an email to [email protected] with “Date X Winner” in the subject, e.g. “May 12 Winner”. Let us know whether you’d prefer a gift card (and list some preferences) or paypal and the neccessary info to have the gift sent.

(more…)

Thank you for all the wonderful and enjoyable memories posted during week 1 of the contest. I truly enjoyed reading each and every one and I could personally relate to many of these memories. If you haven’t read the wonderful memories posted in week 1 of the contest click here to read the superb entries.

This week’s contest is much less emotional and more materialistic; Not as enjoyable as week 1’s contest but will hopefully be very useful. Let us know of tips and tricks or little things that you do to save money. It may be in home maintenance, shopping, the way you manage your money, coupon’ing tips, lifestyle changes, or anything at all. Enter the contest by leaving a comment with your saving tips. 3 entries per person max.

Winners So Far

• May 7 Winner: Week 1 Post 109 by Kitty
• May 8 Winner: Week 1 Post 105 by Connie Walsh
• May 9 Winner: Week 1 Post 25 by Maybe
• May 10 Winner: Week 1 Post 139 by Ivan
• May 11 Winner: Week 1 post 93 by vibrantflame
• May 12 Winner:  Week 1 Post 104 by couponmom
• May 13 Winner: Week 1 Post 192 by Mommy of 3
• May 14 Winner: Week 2 Post 104 by FreebieChick
• May 15 Winner: Week 2 Post 106 FunShopper
• May 16 Winner: Week 2 Post 28 by Tammy Hynes
• May 17 Winner: Week 2 Post 4 by mummyto2
  
• May 18 Winner: Week 2 Post 161 by Nancy
• May 19 Winner: Week 2 Post 41 by layniejoy
• May 20 Winner: Week 2 Post 1 by Ann

Winners Please send an email to [email protected] with “Date X Winner” in the subject, e.g. “May 12 Winner”. Let us know whether you’d prefer a gift card (and list some preferences) or paypal and the neccessary info to have the gift sent.

(more…)

Winners So Far

• May 7 Winner: Post 109 by Kitty
• May 8 Winner: Post 105 by Connie Walsh
• May 9 Winner: Post 25 by Maybe
• May 10 Winner: Post 139 by Ivan
• May 11 Winner: post 93 by vibrantflame

Winners Please send an email to [email protected] with “Date X Winner” in the subject. Let us know whether you’d prefer a gift card or paypal and the neccessary info to have the gift sent.

____________________________________________________

As promised, today I launch SmartCanucks’ largest contest ever in celebration of the new design and as a thank you to all the wonderful readers who made SC the beautiful place it is today. I’ve met a lot of amazing people through SC and made some everlasting friendships and I look forward to meeting new people and making new friends. Thank you.

I’ll be giving away a $10 Gift Card or PayPal cash daily for the next few months. Everyday we’ll have a different winner (you cannot win more than once). This means that we’ll have over 100 different winners so you have an excellent chance of winning.

Here’s how the contest will work: Every week we’ll have a new discussion topic. You can enter the contest by leaving comments and participating in the discussion. You’re allowed a maximum of 3 entries per week but you are more than welcome to post more than 3 comments if you’re enjoying the discussion (they will count as 3). Any spammy comments that don’t add true value to the discussion will not be included as contest entries.

Everyday (at no particular time because my schedule is pretty hectic) a winner will be randomly chosen.The winner will be chosen from all entries since the beginning of that week’s contest. So you may have left a comment on Day 1 and you could still win on Day 5. The winner can choose a gift card for a national store like Shoppers Drug Mart, Loblaws, Tim Hortons, MasterCard cash card, etc. or cash via PayPal.

A few more quick points…

I’m looking for sponsors

If you own or work at a company or in Marketing/PR and are interested in sponsoring a day or week of my contest I’d really appreciate that! Please email me at smartcanucks at gmail dot com.

I’m looking for a reputable Youtuber or Blogger to randomly choose the daily winner

Right now I’ll be randomly choosing the daily winner myself. But if a well known Youtuber or Blogger is interested in taking over that task to prove it’s done fairly that would be great! Please email me at smartcanucks at gmail dot com.

How am I affording to pay for this?

I’ll be paying for this using the money I made from GoogleAds mainly. Hopefully I can get a few sponsors too.

Is this the same as the contest running on Smart Canucks Forum?

No, it is different.

Now onto the contest…  😀

Let us know of your childhood or young adult memories  and the things you cherished the most. What makes you nostalgic? What do you miss? Tell us about a special moment you recall.

Contest info: New $10 gift card or paypal winner chosen daily.

I’d like to welcome koala the lucky bear to our Blog Team 🙂

Many of you know koala through the forum. She has years and years of experience entering contests and knows all the secrets to winning as many contests as possible. Last year alone (2008) she won $6000 worth of contest prizes 😯

Koala has volunteered to share her tips and tricks and winning secrets with us. She’ll also post the hottest contests each week on the blog and will be blogging on the Canadian Contests Blog with RoseofBlack.

Never won a contest before? Think you’re an unlucky person? This may now change! The more you learn about contests and the more contests you enter the more you’ll win. In no time contesting will become a skill. As Thomas Jefferson once said “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

Thank you Koala for sharing your invaluable information with us and I’m looking forward to your blog posts!