A Birthday at My Local Club

It’s my birthday this month and I recently received a kind letter from my local RSL Club reminding me that I can swipe my membership card any time in July and receive $20 worth of food or beverages as a Birthday Gift. This will give me a free meal and I intend to use it on a Christmas in July Special for $19.95. Yum! I love freebies, especially ones that involve a good solid meal that I don’t have to cook. In the past few years I have also received a number of gift vouchers and other restaurant deals in the mail for my birthday.

Some I have used and others I have given away as I was not interested in the products they were promoting. So it seems that when we type our birthdays into the many forms when we enter competitions or go onto mailing lists (a task that is actually quite annoying most of the time) occasionally some good comes of it, eventually.

Anyway, back to my local club. After reading the letter it occurred to me that by spending so much time glued to our computer screens in search of good competitions and freebies we might be missing out on some treasures closer to home. Every Friday night while we raised our children my husband would disappear down to the local club for a few beers, but on more times than none, he would arrive home from the Friday Night Meat Raffle with a meat tray packed with enough meat, eggs and other goodies to feed the family for a week or two. The meat went straight into the freezer.

It is one of my favourite memories from that time. Aside from these regular meat raffles, many clubs also run seafood raffles, Easter raffles, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas toy raffles with plenty of prizes to keep everyone, including the kids, happy. My grandchildren have always benefited from these over the years.

After giving all this a little more thought, I decided it was time to look more closely at my local RSL Club’s latest newsletter. Here I found a lot of cash and goodies up for grabs. First of all – the Weekly Monster Meat Raffle with over $2,000 worth of meat and gourmet foods. Then there was a $10,000 Member’s Monthly Badge Draw each Thursday and Saturday Night (with the nearest pin getting at least $250). Draws like these means you actually have to be present when they are drawn but you never know!

On Wednesday nights the club hosted Bingo with cash prizes including a Jackpot that can accumulate to $2,000. On top of that there was a regular Pool Comp (weekly prize $100) and a Trivia Night (lots of food and drink vouchers). So this leaves plenty to think about if there is a club like this near you. Still on the subject of birthdays, my sister is also having a birthday this month and I just received a lovely music CD which will be perfect for a gift.

My little granddaughter also turns two this month and over the last couple of months I have put together quite a collection of my wins for her – 2 Playschool DVDs, a Playschool Game and family tickets to their next concert as well as a gorgeous girlie-pink hoodie from a SurfStitch voucher. I also became a grand-aunty the other day so I am ready with some bits and pieces for the new bub and new mum too.

So I am all set for July. August is the next month for a special birthday – my long-suffering hubbie, so I am on the lookout again for something to win for him. Just a few more wins of goodies for me would be nice too. You gotta love comping!