Give your alcohol away. Rewards aplenty shall come.

Today I was at a Women in Business event at Gogarburn. It was hosted by our corporate banking team and was a networking evening with lots of women business owners (both customers and non-customers). They're hoping it will be the start of a more regular networking evening, and I was invited because of my work in the Focused Women Network, although I spent a lot of the evening talking about my day job in Technology. They all wanted to know more about the mobile app - how it worked, was it secure, and I also snuck in the story of its creation from within Technology.

I met some interesting people, including:
Ann, a bookkeeper, who gave me some advice about the charity we are setting up for Broughton Primary School
Eliane, a public relations student from Cameroon, there to recruit women for her research.
Jojo, a stand-up comedienne who married her ex-husband's brother, and is now Auntie to her own children.
Lauren, a make-up artist who offered a make-up lesson as star-prize of the raffle, and who offered me advice on false eye-lashes for my burlesque show.

Unfortunately, they hadn't bought enough books of raffle tickets, so early on in the evening I offered to give Anne a bottle of wine (if I won it), because I don't drink it.

After much chatting, eating, listening, and swapping of cards, the end of the evening arrived and the raffle was drawn.

First prize out - a bottle of wine. Winner? Me. So, I duly passed on the wine to Ann.
Last prize out - make-up lesson. Winner? Meeeeeeeee!

Normally, winning two prizes, I would have felt duty-bound to give the second one back. And I really quite wanted the luxury of a make-up lesson so I could perfect my burlesque eyelashes.

But it was okay. I had already given raffle prize number one away! Cue burlesque make-up lesson at the end of November, just in time for my show.

By the way, I am inordinately lucky at raffles, much to my brother's chagrin when we were kids. It all started when I was 7 with a toast rack at a farm fair.

This time, there was a full book of tickets in the draw, 6 prizes, and I won a third of them. That's a good average.