4 Days and Pressure

Well, here we are- 4 days to our biggest event of the year, nine months of work comes down to 2 1/2 hours on Friday night. Will it be a success? Will it bring in the dollars we need so much? Will it run as smoothly as it did last year? I don't know yet, but I'm hoping that it is yes for all three. How do I feel? It is hard to explain- I feel nervous, jumpy, exhausted, anxious, happy on a certain level that we have a really good event planned and excited too. I haven't been sleeping well for the past couple of nights which is really unusual. However things end up on Friday, I do know that I have worked as hard as I could to make this event a success and I am proud of what I've done. We have 41 awesome guys and ladies being auctioned, we met our sponsorship goal, we have done a lot of marketing, we have awesome gift bags, good hosts, good venue, some really cool auction and raffle items- I've been doing everything that is necessary to have a successful event, but that doesn't really help me feel any better. I got a lot of prep work done today- did bid sheets, bought table covers, checked our credit card machine to make sure it was working (it is), got our table lamps out, pens, raffle tickets, etc. I'm trying to get as much done as early as possible. Sometimes, that is easier said than done. Tomorrow was the deadline for gift bag items, so I could do one final stuffing tomorrow night. I just found out this afternoon, that one of our sponsors is bringing gift bags to the event on Friday that we will have to stuff that day. I'm glad they are including items, but I wish we could have had it all done before event day. Our program was finished tonite, but I'm still waiting for the info from 2 fire fighters who said they were participating. I can't wait much longer. The program is so important, I really want it printed and ready to go by Wednesday.

And what about our other event in 2 1/2 weeks? It is moving along slowly- we really need help in spreading the word and getting people to attend. I am so afraid of our lovely room with its 98 auction items all around, great food, live music, free cocktail and just a couple of people there. How utterly awful would that be? I'll end up waging a bidding war with myself for auction items. I did get an email from a woman today through Volunteer Match. She offered to help at the event and also spread the word to her friends/family. She sounded very nice on the phone and was enthusiastic, so hopefully she will be able to bring some people with her.

Anyways, my eyes hurt and I have a headache, I really should go to bed. My friend and board member Michelle just started a blog about supporting a non profit (Project Smile) and I need to put a link on our site to it, but I don't think I can concentrate anymore. It is a really good blog too. She is one of our best board members- always so generous and helpful and full of good ideas. I know that sometimes I'm a little slow about getting back to her about things, I'm working on improving that, but she is always patient. She wants to do a road race for PS and I think that would be a wonderful event. Hopefully, we can do it next year, but perhaps it would be the following year- I don't know yet.

I wish I could get rid of these nerves- I keep trying to relax. We're doing well in ticket sales, we already have more tickets sold than we had the night before the event last year. I'm so glad that I booked extra people for the auction- we had a guy drop out today which was disappointing since he was quite attractive, but since I overbooked, we are still OK. It amazes me how someone can drop out of a charity event this big only 4 days before, but at least we were able to get him out of the program. I hate having people in the program who don't show up.

OK, enough writing- headache and eyes getting worse. I'm off to Gypsy tomorrow to do a run thru and pick up gift certificates. I do have to buy some for the couples which is disappointing, but two friends donated money to help cover some of the cost and one of our volunteers donated money too- I love my friends and volunteers!
Until tomorrow friends...