I do believe it’s the 1st May and that means the launch competition for Speak Up Sydney officially ended yesterday. With 1000’s of reviews going into the site it has been a busy (but fantastic) month keeping up with everyone’s experiences across this great city.

The winners of Speak Up Sydney 2008 (yes, that means there will be another) will be notified on Thursday 8th May. We’ll highlight them here, although they will also be announced over on the Speak Up Sydney website.

The overall winner ($5,000 going to someone and a claim to fame with being published in Time Out Sydney) will be notified on the night of Wednesday 14th May at the Speak Up Sydney party - hosted by Speak Up Sydney, us (RAYV) and Time Out Sydney.

All 10 winners will be at the party (so come along and give them a good ‘ol pat on the back) and give one of them an even bigger pat on the back as they walk away with five grand in their pocket. Perhaps if you ask them nice enough they might buy you a drink! But then again, (if you haven’t already heard) the bar is FREE (at least until our money runs out anyway). There’s so much money and prizes being thrown around you’d think it’s Christmas all over again!

If you haven’t yet received your invite to the Speak Up Sydney party (there’s another RSVP invite email going out next week), you can jump on over to the RSVP page now and fill in your details. Remember though, you need to be a member of RAYV and have written a review to secure your place on the list.

As if watching 10 people win some prizes and enjoying a free bar with food isn’t enough (jeez, you can be a hard bunch) there will also be two other prizes given away on the night. One will be for the best review (as decided by the party goers) and the other will be a superb prize (announced on the night) given to one of the party goers as part of a raffle.

Sometimes I wish I could win these prizes

Thanks to everyone who has participated and spread the word about Speak Up Sydney. From all of the sponsors it has been great being part of this initiative and we’re all looking forward to seeing how it grows in the future.

We have some further updates on the way with regard to new features on the site. These will be announced in the next couple of days.

For now - keep on RAYVing!