Barnet council prize draw scandal

We are getting used to dodgy quizzes on the television, where you pay to take part but there are no prizes (and sometimes no competition), but this is Barnet council's novel reversal of the concept - giving iPod Touchs away free to the tiny handful of people who ever post a comment on its 'social media' site whereilive.org.

When I initially registered for the site some months ago, I don't remember being told anything about a prize draw. Given how few people register on this site, the odds of winning, if this prize draw turns out to be a regular feature, must be pretty short so I shall check back often! (There aren't many other incentives for going on there.)

I see that the most recent poster on whereilive.org is still the very prolific 'Postal Comments', although what they have to say most recently I find tragically apt: "This [whereilive.org] will only make a difference if Barnet listened and acted according to the results of its consultations". Fat chance of that, sunshine!

This is how whereilive.org broke the news about the latest lucky 'winner' of an iPod Touch:

whereilive.org prize winner
BarnetCouncil posted this on February 17th, 2009
Congratulations to Kathy Linton of New Barnet, who was the lucky winner of our prize draw (everyone who registered on whereilive.org was entered into this prize draw). Kathy won an Ipod Touch which she says her family are really looking forward to using.

Kathy told us the reasons why she registered was that she came across the site after seeing the speech bubbles on lamp posts in Mill Hill and went home to register and post a comment:

“Hi, I have lived in Barnet for 14 years now and I have to say I love it. I only have one bug bare and this is it. Yes our parks are pretty but the play equipment is useless. If we want to take our kids, age 10, 8 and 6 to a park with decent play equipment we have to go into neighbouring borough Enfield. My local park, near Underhill is easily accessible to us in Hillier close by bike or foot. However when you do get there the play equipment is broken and only suitable for very young children. Oakhill Park is also beautiful and very spacious, but again the park equipment is only suitable for those 8 and under. Come on Barnet loads of mums despair at our parks. I know this because we always meet up in Enfields excellent parks, i.e Oakwood, Broomfield and Grovelands, and moan about Barnet's parks”.

A Council spokesman said: “Many thanks Kathy for your comments [posted in November 2008]. You’ll be pleased to hear that we’ll be looking to improve play within the borough and will be consulting with residents as part of the Government’s funded Play Builder Scheme.”