We had a recent planning meeting and decided as a group on the following things:
~ Downscale the event, lower our expectations, keep it simple and community oriented
~ Theme: Winter Country Fair; Becky, our decorator extraordinaire, is heading up the venue décor again and will be working with plaid, wool, scarves, ice skates, branches, etc. Think cozy winter fun.
~ Entertainment: In keeping with the Fair theme we decided to have a variety of booths or games (maybe four?) that would be fun for adults. For instance, one idea is to have a pie in the face toss, which would be sort of like the dunk tank at the summer Country Fair. People can buy tickets to play any of the games, providing a small source of income. Big Sky’s best camp director Barbara is heading this up. Contact her if you want to help or if you have any great ideas. We need these activities to be clever and fun...not just silly!
~ Food: instead of hors d'oeuvres, we thought a community meal would be fun. We’ll have chili, corn bread, and salad and sell tickets AHEAD of time for dinner. If we want to recoup the cost of the dinner, each ticket needs to be $10. We can sell the dinner tickets at the same time as the raffle tickets. If you don’t have a ticket ahead of time, you don’t eat dinner (only way to plan for enough food). This allows people to opt out of that extra cost too. We’ll have pie by the slice again (for sale of course) so there will be another option for food. Otherwise, there will not be food provided, which harkens back to the old Pie Auction days. Unless I hear any dissent on this, this is how we will proceed. I think it sounds reasonable but want to know if you don’t.
~ We’ll start an hour earlier (at 6:00) and have an hour of food and carnival fun, plus an early start on silent auction. Then at 7 we can start the Live Auction and have the evening proceed as usual.
~ Jill has volunteered to coordinate another community pie bake. She is putting together details, but the basic idea is to have the bake a day or two before the event, then sell slices of pie at the event for $5 each. She is looking into selling handmade aprons too. This will really enhance our goal of making this a really great community event—not just another fundraiser.
The other elements are pretty much the same—raffle, live and silent auction, kids art.
Here are some other updates. We have a couple immediate needs for help. Look at the boldfaced text below and if you want to help, please reply. I’ll follow up with phone calls if I need to, but I’m hoping I get some takers!
PR
Banners are at Hands On at Four Corners. Need ONE PERSON to pick them up from town and drop them off at the school.
Barbara is on track writing articles up til the event.
Need to get a poster done. I’ll probably work on this (something I enjoy doing). We’ll have them printed when we know about the sponsors (Suzanne and Renae will report back on this)
Elizabeth Erikkson has volunteered to do the program for the night-of. We should talk about the scope of this...I’ve gotten feedback that they often mostly get thrown out. Perhaps we do a flyer like the Rotary did and keep it simple. What do you all think?
Raffle:
Packets will go out Feb. 2nd. I have Chris Monroe helping cut and assemble ticket packets. Anyone else want to help prepare raffle packets?
No BS pass...yet. Barbara R. is working on this.
$500 gas card (thanks Renae!)
Ski package: Amfit footbeds from Grizzly; skis from East Slope; trying to get boots from LMS (message out)
Massage package: Beth H. is putting this together
Dinner package: Need ONE PERSON to put together a local restaurant dinner package. Should coordinate with Becky and her asks for pies.
This may be used for a live auction package...
Donations:
Suzanne and Renae will be heading up this effort, but we will still need A COUPLE MORE PEOPLE to help with soliciting businesses for donations.
Kids Art:
Casey Kapes and Jill Bough are working on this. Each class has a $100 budget. Some classes are having kids do individual projects to sell too.
Pies
Becky has graciously volunteered to take on the pie coordination job. Anyone that wants to help with this, please talk with her!
Thanks as usual to everyone for helping! Be sure to contact Katie Alvin if you want to pitch in.
