I am just a noob, but I have been reading over all the different takes on this fund raising proposition and this is what I have gotten the gist of:
MOT is not a "fund raising event" and does not want to become such. MOT takes the money collected to go to charity (and rightfully so) because MOT gets the money from MINI owners wanting to be apart of a chance to win something (out of the fun of a raffle) and at the same time want the money they do put in to go to a good cause.
As a newbie, I would hate the MOT event to become a "sponsor" event where all big companies/dealerships "donate" things to win and get huge publicity. I can understand if they are supporting good causes and such, but keeping the raffle is probably the best way to go about the possiblity of "winning" MINI swag without it turning into who can one-up the other. Even though I didn't attend last year, I liked the idea of HC MINI and MoP offering up the lease and
JCW upgrade (respectively). It didn't seem like they were competing so much as just offering up different things that were similar in value and encouraging people to enter to win and at the same time helping a good cause.
Basically, what I mean to say is, it would be disappointing to see the focus be taken away so much from MINIs and their owners and turned into a publicity stunt and fund raising spree only.
