Take A Chance Challenge Wrap-Up and Winner

Whew! I'm finally done tabulating the entries for the Take A Chance Challenge, and I have the winner of the $25 Amazon gift certificate. But before I announce the winner, I just want to say a few things.

• The challenge was a lot of fun for me, and I hope you had fun with it too. (Although I know "taking a chance" sometimes meant "getting an awful book to read.") The most rewarding part of the challenge for me was meeting so many new book bloggers! It was so fun getting to know you guys through this challenge, and many of you are now a permanent part of my blog roll!

• Hosting this challenge was a bit more work than I anticipated. I wish I hadn't made my entry system so challenging to myself, but once I figured out how Mr. Linky could export entries, things got easier. Also, I told myself I was going to visit each and every post related to the challenge, and I did fairly good until life got in the way and I kind of fizzled out at the end. My apologies if I never made it to all of your challenge postings. Also, I feel like such a loser for not finishing my own challenge but I've made peace with that. I'm still going to do write-ups for the books I did read.

• I was thrilled when Tami over at Just One More Thing contacted me about adapting the challenge to use in the library where she works. She modified the challenges a little bit to fit in with the library (you can view the blog for the library's version of the challenge here), and I was delighted with how it came out. I hope all the library patrons are having fun with it.

• I'm planning another version of the challenge for 2010 called Take Another Chance. I'm working on coming up with the challenges now and will post details soon as I know everyone is doing their "challenge shopping" right now. (I know I am!) This time I'll give you all year to complete the tasks and will offer "levels" of participation so you can feel like you can finish the challenge. Nothing more frustrating than not being able to finish a challenge, I think! Stay tuned for more details.

• And speaking of finishing challenges, here are the six people who completed all 10 tasks of the Take A Chance Challenge: Kristen M from We Be Reading, Colette from A Buckeye Girl Reads, Sandra from Musings of a Book Addict, Kaye from The Road Goes Ever On, Amanda from The Zen Leaf, and Trisha from Eclectic/Eccentric. My hats off to you guys!

And now for the moment you've all been waiting for (and probably scrolled down to the bottom to find), the winner of the first Take A Chance Challenge and recipient of the $25 Amazon gift certificate is:

Congrats Trisha!

I guess completing all 10 tasks and earning the maximum
number of entries paid off for you! Enjoy your gift certificate!