An Important note for future competitions! PLEASE READ!

Twisted Victor and I wanted to let everyone know a few things we sat down and figured out the other day. The two of us sat down to start this dream of WGF about a year ago to provide a totally free environment to host Miniature galleries. This dream came to fruition after we discussed and formed a budgetary committee of sorts to see what we could realistically do with his daughter on the way and his fiance in job flux, as well as my recent move and then later finding out I was going to be a dad.

We wanted to run a site for free image hosting for everyone without discrimination, and we wanted to run painting contests that weren't elitist! We wanted to do all of this with no cost to our fellow gamers as our way to give back a little piece of what we had gained from all the greatness we have experienced from our fellow gaming communities. We have not and WILL not ever charge entry fees or storage fees, that was our goal...but we have to be economical as well.

So, when we decided to run the Golden Growler we were faced with two dilemmas.
1. Run it with meager support and risk not drawing a crowd.
OR
2. Opening up big and scaling back some, hoping that everyone would understand the financial restraints we have to abide by.

The first contest was AMAZING!!! Really more than we could have hoped for, and we are so excited to do it again! However, a few welcome surprises popped up! One of those was that we never imagined international competitors, 2 of the top three are not in the US, we are very happy about this, but it does cost a bit more.

This contest cost us just around $80 total. That's a bit of scratch, but not too bad. The problem is we cannot maintain that level of expenditure for back to back competitions. After long discussion and painful realization, we decided that we will continue to host the back to back contests, but the prizes may not be that of the first contest. Here are the changes...

1. There will ALWAYS be a first place trophy for every contest!
2. 2nd and 3rd will receive custom frameable certificates, and we will run a Community's choice award poll for popular vote here at WGF.
3. We will hold AT LEAST one a year, if not every six months, a Metal Mercenary Massacre contest with 3 trophies and gift certificates!
4. We will always try to incorporate a drawing and other random prizes into each competition as well as we have built up a bit of a Warchest that would make great prize support, and of course there is always the option of gift certificates!

I hope this doesn't dissappoint anyone or form a cause of detraction from competing. It is simply the math of it all, and we want to maintain consistent contests which we can only afford to do if we scale back a bit for regular competitions. This will also allow us to save up some and then have big blowouts at least once a year, maybe more. Thank you all for understanding, I sincerely hope you can all understand why we are scaling back a bit and understand that we are only doing so to maintain our goal of constant active community service!

Thanks everyone, we look forward to your future submissions! Paint away!

From everyone at WGF,
Merc
Twisted Victor
& Crew