The official rules, in plain English.

The rules

Who runs it

Buddy System is run by the Bench Press Network, which publishes The Happy Camper. Questions go to hello@thehappycamper.club and a person reads them.

Who can enter

• You are 18 or older.
• You are subscribed to The Happy Camper.
• You live in or near what it covers. The Happy Camper is written for people from Lehi to Pleasant Grove, which today means these zip codes: 84043, 84003, 84004, 84062, 84042.
• You are not the person who writes this newsletter, anyone who works on the network, or a member of either household.

One person, one entry, one address. Two accounts that obviously belong to the same person count as one.

What it costs

Nothing. There is nothing to buy, nothing to pay, and no purchase changes anyone's odds. Entry being free is also why this is a contest and not a lottery.

How to enter

• Get your link from the Buddy System page, send it to somebody, and they subscribe.

What counts as a point

All of these, or it does not count:

• They signed up through your link, so their signup carries your code.
• They confirmed the email that beehiiv sends them, and they are still subscribed when the contest is counted.
• They signed up while the contest was open, Mountain Time (the next section says when).
• That address has never been counted as a referral before, here or in any other edition in the network. The first link to bring somebody gets the point and later ones get nothing.
• It is not your own address.
• It is not a throwaway or disposable address.
• They were on the list for at least one issue and the email did not bounce.
• The signup came through one of our signup forms, or beehiiv's own signup page, carrying your link's code.

The recount

Points are counted from the live subscriber list when the contest closes rather than banked as they arrive. Ten people who all unsubscribe on the 29th are worth zero on the 30th.

When it starts and ends

The first contest opened October 1 and runs to 11:59pm on December 31, Mountain Time (America/Denver). Everyone your link brings in during that stretch counts, and the prizes are decided on January 1. After that, a contest runs one calendar month at a time, from 12:00am on the first to 11:59pm on the last day.

The clock that decides it is the timestamp on the subscription.

How the winner is picked and told

Most points wins. If two people tie, both win. Each paper in the network runs its own contest with its own prize, and a point counts only in the paper whose link earned it.

The winner gets an email at the address their link belongs to, within seven days of the contest closing. If nobody answers in fourteen days it moves to the next entrant. The prize itself is in the winner's hands within thirty days of being named.

The prize

Each paper has its own prize, usually something from a local business. What it is, roughly what it is worth, and who donated it are named on the Buddy System page and in an issue before the contest closes; until then the page says the prize is still to be announced. A donated prize is a trade, and it is labeled as one wherever it shows up.

No cash instead, and a prize cannot be handed to somebody else. If a donor falls through, the month gets called off in an issue rather than quietly swapped for something smaller.

Taxes

A prize is yours to declare if your situation calls for it. Prize value stays under $600 per person per year, which is the line where tax paperwork starts.

What shows up in public

The board shows first names and point totals. Never an email address, never a full name, never a street.

Fair play

More than ten signups from one link in a day gets a look from a person. That by itself is not a disqualification: one good post in one neighborhood group can do it in an afternoon. Buying signups, inventing addresses, or signing up people who did not ask ends an entry.

Changes, and ending it

If this stops working it gets said in an issue, and the month that is running gets finished. Rules can change between months and never during one.

Not affiliated with anyone

This contest is not run by, sponsored by, or associated with beehiiv, Meta, Instagram, Facebook, Google, Cloudflare, or any business beyond the one donating that month's prize.

Questions

Reply to any issue, or write to hello@thehappycamper.club.