The Site SoCal Chapter Board of Directors was thrilled to announce the following outstanding results at the first Chapter lunch meeting on January 28. Checks were presented to the three designated charities at the lunch and each charity was given the opportunity to say a few words of acknowledgement.

Pictured above is Darrell Benning and Geraldine Gatehouse, co-chairs of 2009 Holiday Event.

The 2009 Holiday Event produced better than expected results especially when considered in light of the current economic conditions. For this eleventh anniversary of the event, we drew record attendance totaling 670 registered guests for the main gala luncheon as well as a record number of sponsors and sponsorship dollars. Since 2007, we have in fact doubled the number of sponsors and increased sponsorship revenue by 85%.

In our ongoing efforts to add value to the Holiday Event each year, the 2009 Event saw the introduction of a new component – a 5K Run/Walk on the Tuesday morning. This event was very successful and attracted over $12,000 in pledge revenue for which we utilized an online fundraising platform called FirstGiving.

We also produced a video loop showing all the major sponsors and the charities at the welcome reception as a value-added feature for the sponsors, as well as creating a special game to increase planner traffic for the vendor table purchasers.  To reduce costs, we used Cvent for the registration and handled the credit card accounting ourselves with the aid of our CPA, Katherine Gluck. Where possible, we negotiated decreased costs to maximize returns to the charities and solicited donated services.

Registered numbers for each component of the event were:

Golfers                     90

“My Stuff Bags” Community Outreach Program       100

VIP Planner & Major Sponsor Reception               225

Welcome reception           385

5K Run/Walk         106

Sponsored Breakfast             250

Luncheon tables sold               67

Registered guests 670

Guest ratio:                                                                     344 Planners, 326 suppliers

The final financial results are:

Net proceeds raised from the event $154,000

As announced at the January 28 meeting, we have been forced by circumstances outside our control to reduce this amount slightly before allocating the shared amounts to the three designated charities and the SoCal Chapter Karen Olhava Henderson Memorial fund. The reason for this is that two of our live auction packages included international business class tickets and the airline that donated these announced in January a major financial restructure and possible service changes. The amount that the Chapter collected for these two packages was $18,600. After careful deliberation, the Board feels that we must be prudent and protective of Chapter funds in light of this situation and retain this amount of $18,600 in our Chapter account against possible demands from the auction package purchasers for a refund and /or the need to purchase tickets on a substitute airline. Negotiations with the airline in question are ongoing and we have received verbal assurances that these donated tickets will be honored.  It is our fervent hope to resolve this difficult situation in a timely manner. Once this is resolved to the satisfaction of the two auction package purchasers and we have received release of liability forms from both of them, we will donate the balance of the funds (less any refund or associated costs) to the three charities and the Karen Olhava Henderson Memorial fund on the same split share basis. The charities were verbally briefed on this prior to January 28 and letters of explanation were provided along with their checks.

The allocation of the funds raised is therefore:

Karen Henderson Memorial Fund (10% of total) $13,540
(Since no suitable recipient was identified in 2009, this fund is being held in trust by the Chapter until a suitable recipient can be determined during 2010)

Balance divided equally between:

My Stuff Bags Foundation, Horsemanship for the Handicapped & Orange County Youth Commission - $40,620 per charity.

The outstanding success of this event would not have been possible without a considerable amount of hard work from all our committee chairs and volunteers, our very generous sponsors and donors, our host property and our production team.

A special acknowledgement also to our dedicated Event Co Chairs, Geraldine Gatehouse & Darrell Benning and to all our honored guests at the event for their participation and generous support.

The Site SoCal Chapter Board extends grateful thanks and appreciation to all who contributed to the success of this event and made it possible for the Chapter to make such significant donations to these worthy charities.

Visit this website frequently for updates and news on our 2010 Holiday Event and Charity Fundraiser.