First the Bad News… The Oktoberfest 2024 committee met yesterday to go over the final plans for our fundraiser event on the 28th. While we have all our team positions filled and just poised to start into the schedule of ordering food and drink supplies and to “make it happen”, we found that collectively we have only sold 10% of the tickets necessary to meet our Scholarship Fund goal. Despite the publicity we have splashed all over South Whidbey, we have to cancel this public fundraising event. This was a difficult decision because we all felt, when we approved the budget last January, we could make this a success and we have invested a lot of effort to this point. Looking forward, we will have to have a lot of conversation about addressing our Scholarship Mission.
The Good News… The committee, having gone through all the planning, has proposed that we turn our October 2nd Friday dinner into our own Oktoberfest. The committee has agreed to prepare the food (so it will not be a pot-luck) and cover the expenses with a $15 dinner charge. The menu will be the same as we intended to serve at the fundraiser, including one beverage (others available for purchase). We hope this will be an enjoyable social event and could even be a good opportunity for you to bring a friend or neighbor to get to know our club. We, of course, are hoping for donations towards our Scholarship Fund and some of you have already made one. Additionally, we have solicited gift cards from a number of local merchants. We are having to contact the donors to inform them of our change of plans but we confident most will agree to let us keep the gift cards. We will still have the gift card raffle which will be a good opportunity for you to get ready for your holiday giving! Just as was the case with our former plans, we will need to know how many to cook for so we are asking you over the next week or so to talk to your friends and then contact Sandy Nonhof and give her your commitment to attend. If you are still waiting to hear back from your friends, let Sandy know you are coming and then follow up as soon as you can about any additional folks.
Hope to hear from all of you (I know you already have every second Friday reserved for BISC).
tschÜss,
Tom