Thursday News

So what's new? I attended a charity fundraiser tonight in Boston- I was actually volunteering at the event, but they already had a lot of volunteers and didn't need more help, so I spent most of my time wandering around and enjoying the event. I love going to charity events- not only to support great causes, but is great to see how other organizations do their events. One can learn a lot just by observing events. I don't get to many charity events usually because I can't afford the ticket price. This event was held in a beautiful venue in Boston that had incredible views of the city. It was a really nice event with lots of different restaurants and shops participating and offering food samples for the guests. I had thought of doing an event like that already, so it was great to see a similar one. It must take a lot of work to coordinate, so I wouldn't want to undertake such an event without some really strong partnerships already in place. Seeing this event also made me feel really proud of our own events, particularly since I've done all our big events by myself. There were a couple of things that I think we actually do better at our events. I was also really relieved by the gift bags. I've been worried about how many items we are going to get for our bags, so I was happy when I saw that their bags were pretty small. They had a magazine, box of soap, Valvoline coupon and chapstick. Considering this event had a $100 ticket and our event will be a $15-16 dollar ticket, I think we are doing really well for our items. It was great to see how many people attended- it looked like well over 250.

What else is new? I picked up a $100 gift certificate to Masa for the date auction tonight. They are such a nice restaurant- so supportive of our work and helpful- and they have really good food. I'm going to write a review on Yelp and mention how supportive they are of local charity events. I was really disappointed yesterday in a phone call that I received from a Boston based restaurant that donated a gift card last year for the date auction. The lady called me back and said that they only donate to the same charity every two years. Now, I can totally understand if we were talking about a sizeable amount of money, but a $50 gift card? Seriously? This is a chain restaurant that also sells its food in grocery stores, it is very successful. So the idea that they are so limited that they can only donate a gift card every two years doesn't make much sense. Can you imagine if every business had that attitude? Every charity would suffer. The part that really got to me was when she said, "I have to work within a budget you know." Of course I know about budgets- when you start a business with a $50 personal check and build it to where it is today, you do know a thing or two about working within a budget. Anyways, I will not be dining at that restaurant again. Whenever possible, I will not spend my money (or organize group dinners) at establishments that don't support us. I really value the people and businesses that make donations to us, so I would much rather give them my business and bring friends there too.

Anyways, it is 1am and I'd better go to bed. I'm starting to feel a burst of energy coming on, but that is not good since I don't want to end up going to bed at 3am which will happen if I go back to work now. I did start working on contacting sponsors for our Anniversary event. I was looking at my sponsor list from last year and I didn't start until early May last year, so I'm actually ahead of schedule! We did get one more calendar month sold which was good news and I also found out that our grant application we submitted last November to a local bank's charitable foundation was evidently lost- this is actually good news because I hadn't heard anything and was concerned that the Foundation might have stopped reviewing applications. So I decided to inquire about it when I asked about the calendar sponsorship. I'm glad I asked since now I can update the grant and resubmit.

OK- need to stop now. I wish I'd already switched off the office computer so I didn't feel the temptation to sit down and start writing more letters. My eyes are starting to hurt, so I do need to sleep. Until next time friends..