Surveys… seems like everyone is doing them. I belong to a couple or three online sites that email me quite frequently asking me to complete their latest survey. I have an opportunity to offer my opinion (in a limited fashion) on innumerable subjects ranging from politics to when I will buy my next car. And offer my opinion I do, which won’t come as a surprise to many. All for a few points and a chance to win up to $5,000 on a monthly draw with odds likely equal to winning a weekly lottery.

We are also offering you an opportunity to complete a survey. There are only nine main questions about who you are, what you read and what you’re shopping for. Please visit surveymonkey.com/s/6SBJRR7 or — what is likely easier — just drop by invermerevalleyecho.com, scroll halfway down the page and click on the ‘click to win’ button on the right hand side. Fill in your answers to the questions and at the bottom you’ll find a space to enter your name and email address. This is completely optional but if you choose to do so, your name will be entered into a draw to win a 50″ plasma TV valued at $800 from Selkirk TV and Appliance. What do you think… will the odds be better than winning the lottery? I think they just might! Go ahead, it couldn’t be much easier. As a matter of fact if you have a smart phone, the QR code is in the ad in this edition. I’m going to figure out how that works before this goes to print, I hope. As I may have mentioned before, I’m a little technically challenged.

Why do we want this information? Well, we want to know what our readers like, what’s important to them, shopping trends and their intentions to purchase a variety of products and services. We’ll then share those results with our local business owners. We also want to know what those business owners are thinking in order to broaden the picture.

So please, take a few minutes now and complete the survey… you’ll help us to help you and you never know, you might win a big TV!

Marilyn Berry is publisher of The Valley Echo.