Letter from the Director, January 2025

Dear Brick News website users,

It's been a while since my last major update, and I have some cool announcements I would like to share in addition to general updates on Brick News as a whole. To make this post easier to digest, I'll put titles in bold font and announce the fun stuff in the first half of the letter. General news, announcements and other information will be in the second half of this letter.

Before I get into it, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas (or happy holidays for those that don't celebrate), and a Happy New Year! I hope your 2025 has a great start and I look forward to calling another dozen grand prize winners throughout the year.

Competition Announcements

Sponge Competition for the LEGO Bricklink Ominous Isle

As I teased on the forums not long ago, the competition for the Bricklink Ominous Isle has been announced and kicked off! This marks the first time a Bricklink set has been available through Brick News, and this competition is completely free-to-enter. For more information about the competition, you can visit the article here.

Photography Competition

Brick News will soon be hosting a photography competition in order to gather new high-quality photos to decorate our website with. Most of the current photos being used were submitted by Tongwars (A.K.A Richard Henry) but it's time to change up our look. For this photography competition you can submit old or new photos as long as they are your own work.

The grand prize for the competition will be the LEGO Star Wars: Dark Falcon, and there will be three runner-up prizes. The runner-up prizes will have a minimum value of $60 AUD and be based on the prevalent theme from your photos (LEGO City, Marvel, DC, Harry Potter, Ninjago etc). We have no set start date yet, but the competition will likely run for 3-4 weeks and begin in mid-January. It will be open to all site members and free to enter.

Forum Competition

The next forum competition is about to kick off! We'll be giving away a LEGO 66787 Star Wars: 3 in 1 Jedi Masters Gift Set to

an active Brick News forum user who meets the following criteria:

• Has at least 20 total posts or comments on other posts. These cannot be spam posts/comments and must be spread out over multiple days.

• Has uploaded photos of multiple LEGO sets they own, or photos/videos of their collection.

• Has an active Brick News website subscription.

Users who have met the above criteria will be entered into a draw for their chance to win this rare Walmart-exclusive LEGO set. Brick News will continue to run forum competitions sporadically, and some users may have received small goodies for their usage of the forums. Full details of this competition will be posted on the forums. This competition will be exclusive to subscription-holders.

General News and Updates

So, I've covered all of the fun stuff. For those of you who are interested, I'll now dive into general news, information and updates on Brick News as a website. It may get a bit serious (or seriously boring), so feel free to head out!

Slowdown in News Content

Brick News has now been running for just a bit over two years. In that time, I've had heaps of learnings - be it regarding better ways to run the competitions, what adult fans of LEGO are interested in, website maintenance and health and numerous other things. There's also been a number of challenges... including my receiving of a diagnosis of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, which has impacted my ability to type with my left hand. This has resulted in a slowdown in news content and articles. I'm looking into treatment options and am hopeful that soon I can return to typing normally again.

Looking for Writers

As always, Brick News is on the lookout for volunteers. If you'd like to write for Brick News as a hobby, we will occasionally offer payment for articles or send out LEGO sets to review (which you get to keep). This may be ideal for school or uni students who want to add something to their resume.

What 2025 Looks Like for Brick News

I have set a few goals for Brick News as a company in 2025. Priority number one will always be looking after our customers and our community. I personally read every comment, email, forum post and even most of the social media comments, even if someone else has already checked them for me. Whether there's positive or negative feedback, I make sure it's heard and where I can I take action on it.

Priority number two won't come as a surprise to anyone: growing Brick News' customer base. With more customers, our budget increases and we can host better competitions. This is of particular importance to me due to the rumours of a $1600 AUD LEGO Star Wars Death Star. If you thought the $800 LEGO Rivendell set that occasionally shows up in our monthly draws was expensive, this Death Star costs double! I'd love to be able to give this set away in the monthly draws, but this will only be possible when the budget is increased. The set is rumoured for an October 2025 release, giving roughly 8 months of prep time to expand Brick News so that we can grab some Death Stars and start giving them away.

Thank You

If you took the time to read this far, thanks for sticking around! I want to take the time to ask what you like about Brick News and what you'd like to see from us in 2025. I'll be reading all of the comments on this post, so whether you're a free or paid member, if you've got feedback please let me know below!