Morning all
I’ve been meaning to do a post on ‘fitting opportunities’ for a while so seems like an apt time given the all the recent ones and the thread on what you’d applied for
Opportunity vs Competition
Almost everything we post up on the forum is an opportunity NOT a competition. Competitions – usually featured on the mag and entered on the site – only involve you answering a question and winners are picked at random by the Stephen Hawkings super computer our data people have. Applications for opportunities are reviewed by GM staff…
The selection process
There has been a lot of conjecture about this recently and although I have posted some guidance in the past its worth refreshing everyone on our working.
You are unlikely to be selected if…
Other factors…
Future opportunities
There are a couple of crackers in the offing so stay tuned!
I’ll be upfront here and say we are considering reserving 1 or 2 spaces on future opportunities for GM subscribers to offer a bit of extra value to folk who put their hand in their pocket and pay for the content we produce.
However I’d always want to have a forum presence in their and any changes unlikely to be before the summer. If you’re a forum member who subscribes to the mag then you’ll have double the chance!
Write-Ups
No one is under ANY obligation to write up their day here and certainly no one is required to post positive reports of the day and reviews of the kit.
I’d hope we get positive feedback in the form of posts/reports because it was an enjoyable day where those selected got fitted for product that gave an improvement in performance.
Location
A bugbear for a number of folk I know but the reality is most brands are based in the South East and our offices are in London so it would be a waste of staff time and budgets (neither of which are in great supply) to send one, possibly two, journos and a photographer to a location that will involve us incurring flight/hotel costs and extra time out of the office traveling.
When there is an opportunity to use a northern/Scottish fitting centre (as we did with Titleist 714 fitting) then we’ll consider the option to do that.
I have to say if you can’t be arsed to at least show a bit of willing in order to travel in return for free kit and a good day out then you’ll probably be waiting a while for an opportunity to come to your back garden.
We have and will continue to consider offering to pay travel/hotel costs for those willing to travel south. This is done on an ad hoc basis. I will take into account how much kit we think you’re going to get (sometimes brands go to town and deliver a lot more than they’d told us they’d fit forumers for) and also the more positive your contributions are to the forum are the more generous I’m likely to be in offering to pay for flights/hotel etc.
Hope that gives a bit of insight into the whole process/thinking etc
I’ve been meaning to do a post on ‘fitting opportunities’ for a while so seems like an apt time given the all the recent ones and the thread on what you’d applied for
Opportunity vs Competition
Almost everything we post up on the forum is an opportunity NOT a competition. Competitions – usually featured on the mag and entered on the site – only involve you answering a question and winners are picked at random by the Stephen Hawkings super computer our data people have. Applications for opportunities are reviewed by GM staff…
The selection process
There has been a lot of conjecture about this recently and although I have posted some guidance in the past its worth refreshing everyone on our working.
You are unlikely to be selected if…
- You’ve been selected before (although we have had folks being selected twice if they are the best candidate and there aren’t others who are suited to a particular opportunity
- If you’ve got a bag full on new gear/just bought a new driver and it’s a driver fitting etc. My view is there are others more deserving of the opportunity to bag some new kit and as we are always looking to show an improvement then that will be hard for those who have been recently fitted.
- You give the impression in your posts/general forum behavior you’d be hard work to manage on the day. The GM team haven’t got the time to man mark another adult or be worrying that you’ll embarrass GM/The Forum in front of our partners.
- Related to that your application will be binned without consideration if you’ve got a live infraction
Other factors…
- I like to include a mix of stalwarts, newbies, older and younger forumers, different playing abilities (so long as applicable) and try to get a decent geographical spread in.
- Sometimes we get asked by brands to select types of golfer be it defined by playing ability, age or current product used
Future opportunities
There are a couple of crackers in the offing so stay tuned!
I’ll be upfront here and say we are considering reserving 1 or 2 spaces on future opportunities for GM subscribers to offer a bit of extra value to folk who put their hand in their pocket and pay for the content we produce.
However I’d always want to have a forum presence in their and any changes unlikely to be before the summer. If you’re a forum member who subscribes to the mag then you’ll have double the chance!
Write-Ups
No one is under ANY obligation to write up their day here and certainly no one is required to post positive reports of the day and reviews of the kit.
I’d hope we get positive feedback in the form of posts/reports because it was an enjoyable day where those selected got fitted for product that gave an improvement in performance.
Location
A bugbear for a number of folk I know but the reality is most brands are based in the South East and our offices are in London so it would be a waste of staff time and budgets (neither of which are in great supply) to send one, possibly two, journos and a photographer to a location that will involve us incurring flight/hotel costs and extra time out of the office traveling.
When there is an opportunity to use a northern/Scottish fitting centre (as we did with Titleist 714 fitting) then we’ll consider the option to do that.
I have to say if you can’t be arsed to at least show a bit of willing in order to travel in return for free kit and a good day out then you’ll probably be waiting a while for an opportunity to come to your back garden.
We have and will continue to consider offering to pay travel/hotel costs for those willing to travel south. This is done on an ad hoc basis. I will take into account how much kit we think you’re going to get (sometimes brands go to town and deliver a lot more than they’d told us they’d fit forumers for) and also the more positive your contributions are to the forum are the more generous I’m likely to be in offering to pay for flights/hotel etc.
Hope that gives a bit of insight into the whole process/thinking etc
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