Given that there's a decent amount in our fund for now, with no plans at the moment for spending it, I'd like to proose we set aside ~ $15k USD for the purchase of minted seats and we would raffle them off to seat holders (more seats = more chances). I would see this as something that doesn't hurt our fund, and it is a way of giving back to seat holders and may also draw some attention to the group. My thinking here too is that with the recent upturn in value of Bitcoin and hitting our 8th year, it's something that I think most seat holders would appreciate as a nice memento.
That is a very nice idea. Ognasty (or Nonakip) can start a raffle here so seat owners can join the raffle. Only need to figure out a way how to run the raffle. You say, more seats, more chances but who to determine the "weight" ? And how does a seat owner prove he ownes the seat(s)?
I like this idea and think it could be fun. I've put some thought into it and I have a couple ideas I think could help make it fair.
We have done a similar giveaway in the past with online seats, so I think nonnakip could handle it in a transparent and fair way.
Online seats would be no problem to see who won, and maybe nonnakip could put up some sort of notification when users log in that they've won and ask them where they'd like their coin shipped. The problem here would be users not claiming their free coins within a set period of time, and if this happened I think we could auction the coin on bitcointalk and donate the proceeds to NastyFans.
Minted seats would provide another challenge as like you said, it would be impossible to prove ownership of the coin without peeling it, and we don't want to require that. The best way I know how to combat this problem would be for all minted seats to join together for this contest and any minted seat that wins a free coin will have the coin auctioned off on bitcointalk and proceeds from the coin would be split by minted seats only (I think the 1000 seat platinum coins should be excluded from this and counted as online seats in an effort to cut down on the number of coins we would need to auction since all of their owners are known to me).
If people think this is a good solution and nonnakip is willing to do the work involved for him, then I would like to (as I have just hit 10,000 posts) formally offer for NastyMining to purchase $10,000 worth of Minted Seats for the giveaway. I think a poll should be put up for fans to vote if this is a good use of our savings and if approved we could announce the giveaway!