contender
Ruger Guru
Well folks,, as many of y'all know,, I'm involved with the FoNRA & we had our local banquet last friday evening.
This year was a "challenge" to say the least.
In 2021,, we were severely restricted in attendance thanks to the beer virus & state, county restrictions. But we had a good event then anyway. This year,, several things happened.
We have a brand new Field Rep. He'd only gotten the job about 6 weeks prior to our event. Totally green, and he got very, very little training. Our event was to be his first one. With that,, we had a lot of little issues on ordering materials, product, etc.
Then, the day of the event,, problems.
(1) Staples was doing our program printing. It was scheduled to be finished by thursday evening at 6:30 pm. At 10:15 am Friday,, we went to get it,, and they hadn't even started it. Then the employee who was tasked with doing it immediately,, was rude,, got mad, threw a box across the room, threw papers on the floor, and even loud cussing. I grabbed a manager,, and had a polite but FIRM discussion. About 1-1/2 hours later,, we FINALLY got our programs. What were supposed to be double sided,, and stapled together were single paged, and not stapled. But we were now very late in trying to get to our event.
(2) The hosting facility,, we were supposed to have a computerized powerpoint presentation to scroll a list of our Donors, our Sponsors etc all evening,, AND be able to put up pictures of our live auction items. Three hours of their techs trying,, and it was a no-go. Never did get it to work.
(3) A minor thing,, yet something our regulars look for. We use colored, helium filled balloons to guide folks to various games & raffles. The helium tank which had been bought new,, was empty. No balloons.
Throw in that some of my committee members were either sick, (This included our world class auctioneer,) or suddenly on call, or in one couple's case,, didn't want to attend due to fears of crowd exposure & the possibility of the beer virus,, we were short handed.
But,, as chairman,, I had to jump in & figure out how to make things happen.
A call to another auctioneer, got me him, AND his (2) daughters to help. A couple more calls,, and I scared up a few more volunteers. One,, a FINE gentleman who's the manager of the local Sportsman's Warehouse,, who was also planning on attending,, volunteered to assist us in our games.
We got the programs stapled & put out. We didn't have the powerpoint,, or the balloons,, so we had to re-arrange some stuff,, but we made it work.
The doors opened at 6 pm as planned.
We had a pretty good attendance with very few who bought a ticket not attending.
We had a total of 70 firearms available for an attendance of 270 people. We didn't use all the firearms,, but we did transfer a total of 66 of them. Our table of guns raffle,, 6 out of 8 people played that game on the winning table. All 6 enjoyed getting a rifle.
Our key item,, a safe with 3 guns in it,, was a hot item,, and the winner,, didn't need the safe,, & sold it to another attendee for 1/2 price immediately. He kept the guns,, and was very happy.
Our Gun of the Year,, did quite well on the live auction,, as did the High Caliber gun. Most of y'all have seen my post about "Gun people" where the winning bidder GAVE AWAY the Colt Python. Truly the highlight of the evening.
But we finally got all the bills paid,, the event totals tallied,, and I was informed that we raised a NET amount of $65,700.00 this year. I'm dern proud of having done so well. The numbers make all the other stuff pale,, and make me proud of how well we did!
Oh,, yes,, I did manage to win a gun myself.
This year was a "challenge" to say the least.
In 2021,, we were severely restricted in attendance thanks to the beer virus & state, county restrictions. But we had a good event then anyway. This year,, several things happened.
We have a brand new Field Rep. He'd only gotten the job about 6 weeks prior to our event. Totally green, and he got very, very little training. Our event was to be his first one. With that,, we had a lot of little issues on ordering materials, product, etc.
Then, the day of the event,, problems.
(1) Staples was doing our program printing. It was scheduled to be finished by thursday evening at 6:30 pm. At 10:15 am Friday,, we went to get it,, and they hadn't even started it. Then the employee who was tasked with doing it immediately,, was rude,, got mad, threw a box across the room, threw papers on the floor, and even loud cussing. I grabbed a manager,, and had a polite but FIRM discussion. About 1-1/2 hours later,, we FINALLY got our programs. What were supposed to be double sided,, and stapled together were single paged, and not stapled. But we were now very late in trying to get to our event.
(2) The hosting facility,, we were supposed to have a computerized powerpoint presentation to scroll a list of our Donors, our Sponsors etc all evening,, AND be able to put up pictures of our live auction items. Three hours of their techs trying,, and it was a no-go. Never did get it to work.
(3) A minor thing,, yet something our regulars look for. We use colored, helium filled balloons to guide folks to various games & raffles. The helium tank which had been bought new,, was empty. No balloons.
Throw in that some of my committee members were either sick, (This included our world class auctioneer,) or suddenly on call, or in one couple's case,, didn't want to attend due to fears of crowd exposure & the possibility of the beer virus,, we were short handed.
But,, as chairman,, I had to jump in & figure out how to make things happen.
A call to another auctioneer, got me him, AND his (2) daughters to help. A couple more calls,, and I scared up a few more volunteers. One,, a FINE gentleman who's the manager of the local Sportsman's Warehouse,, who was also planning on attending,, volunteered to assist us in our games.
We got the programs stapled & put out. We didn't have the powerpoint,, or the balloons,, so we had to re-arrange some stuff,, but we made it work.
The doors opened at 6 pm as planned.
We had a pretty good attendance with very few who bought a ticket not attending.
We had a total of 70 firearms available for an attendance of 270 people. We didn't use all the firearms,, but we did transfer a total of 66 of them. Our table of guns raffle,, 6 out of 8 people played that game on the winning table. All 6 enjoyed getting a rifle.
Our key item,, a safe with 3 guns in it,, was a hot item,, and the winner,, didn't need the safe,, & sold it to another attendee for 1/2 price immediately. He kept the guns,, and was very happy.
Our Gun of the Year,, did quite well on the live auction,, as did the High Caliber gun. Most of y'all have seen my post about "Gun people" where the winning bidder GAVE AWAY the Colt Python. Truly the highlight of the evening.
But we finally got all the bills paid,, the event totals tallied,, and I was informed that we raised a NET amount of $65,700.00 this year. I'm dern proud of having done so well. The numbers make all the other stuff pale,, and make me proud of how well we did!
Oh,, yes,, I did manage to win a gun myself.
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