Fundraising Casino

Egmont Saloon Casino Night on November 21 was a huge success as my friend Beverly and I planned, raising approximately $11,000.00. Now I’m not going to tell all our fundraising secrets but I’ll share the basics of our planning and the insights we gained to help do it again next year – even more successfully. Perhaps we could go into an event planning business with business cards and brochures to advertise.

Nearly a year ago Beverly wrote an article which was published in the local “Harbour Spiel” about the history of our Egmont Community Hall, my 96 year old Pop’s part in it, and she explained we have been fundraising for 7 years to have the building raised and a new cement foundation installed as well as upgrades to the porch and new windows installed.

I know many residents read the article, were aware of Pop’s involvement in the community of Egmont in ‘the early days’ and were pleased to know he was still interested in helping preserve the Hall.

For a small community, Egmont has raised a great deal of money toward this project which requires around $115,000.00 to complete. Pop and I were involved in raising some of the money – as a matter of fact, Pop raised over $1200.00 at his birthday party and Egmont Day by challenging his friends and family to match his $100.00 contribution. LOL – it’s difficult to say no when a 96 year old asks for something!

When I moved back to live in Egmont full time in June, it was suggested to me by the couple who own Madeira Marina, Rick and Karen King that I get involved with a fundraising project . They offered to contribute to the project if I got the ball rolling.

I immediately phoned Beverly Saunders, the President of the ECC to share the good news and we started discussing ideas. She suggested the ‘casino’ idea and we were off – to a bit of a slow start, I admit, as I was in New York in August, in Orlando in October and New York again in November. We found a very professional casino supply company to deliver the games tables and a ‘pit boss’. In my mind, this professionalism MADE the event very exciting and attractive.

We were able to do much of our planning, discussing and organizing via email which was a huge help. Beverly is the creative one and I’m a doer so we were a good match. Linda Baillie and Betty Silvey, both ECC members jumped onboard offering their services to organize and prepare all the food.

Beverly and I approached many, many Egmont, Pender Harbour and Sechelt businesses for High Roller prizes, auction items and door prizes – even one of my blogger friends, Connie of BrainFoggles offered to help. I know of only three businesses who turned us down and they each had good reason and I totally understand they can’t give to every single organization that asks.

We also approached local business to ’sponsor’ our casino tables – again, I was delighted and amazed at the positive response. Once we knew we had the event well under way we began working on ticket sales. Many people leave that until the last minute, thinking they can buy tickets at the door at events. Depending on your liquor license, that is not always the case.

Speaking of a liquor license – what a run around that was. You have to get the form at the liquor store, the person with the Serving it Right certificate must sign the form, and the form must be approved by the RCMP. The RCMP office is an hour away from Egmont – and closes at 4 pm – not open Saturday of course, so how does a person who works Monday to Friday manage to get a license approved? With difficulty, and half a dozen or more trips to and from the Madeira Park liquor store, policing station and RCMP building in Sechelt. Still, we managed to get approval by the Thursday before the event. DON’T leave yourself short on time – 3 weeks was barely enough time with all the glitches of small town living.

Meanwhile, I started sewing vests for the dealers and volunteers and realized I needed serious help to complete them on time. Our local quilt group, the Skookum Scrappers came to my aid and we worked feverishly cutting, sewing, trimming, pressing, turning, pressing again and only managed to make 15 vests. They looked fabulous though and I tried to ‘fit’ each person as best I could using measurements, try-ons and guessing. I must get more fabric so we have vests for the servers and a couple more dealers next year.

Beverly kept us on track with lists. I’m a ‘list’ person too, so that worked great as we checked and double checked each others lists continually making adjustments and additions. Once the big night arrived our lists were perfect for the door prizes, silent auction, costume prizes and High Roller prizes. I believe our lists were so accurate we did not forget ANYONE – even in our thank you letters and newpaper ads!

Our decor was simple but very effective with a color scheme of red table skirts, red bandanas, Mabel the Mannequin in an old Saloon Girl costume, a few cowboy hats, saddlebags, ‘wanted’ posters, and my old red cowboy boots as doorstops we didn’t need much more. Most people dressed in their cowboy hats, boots and jeans and we handed out red bandanas to each ticket holder as they entered the saloon. The absolute best part of the ‘Saloon’ theme was the plywood swinging batwing doors. Pop donated the plywood and between Jim Saunders, Geoff Craig and Tom Lavis the doors turned out amazing! The guys also made an awesome bar using old barrels and a heavy wooden top. You can see my Facebook pictures here.

Attendance was good at 75+ people, but we based the event on 100 people. It would have been very crowded in the hall with 100 people as the Blackjack, Roulette and Texas Hold ‘em tables take up a lot of room. We also had 4 tables FULL of auction items. The food was plentiful – and excellent in presentation and taste. The evening was entertaining and many people went home with prizes.

The ‘High Rollers’ were a surprising mix of young and not so young. The crowd was diverse in age which is a very good result for a fun-filled evening.

A number of people remarked the next few days about the event and others heard about it. One attendee suggested we hold another casino night in two weeks time!

I’m glad we have nearly a year to plan for the next Egmont Saloon night. It takes a LOT of planning and work but with the amount of information we learned from holding this ‘First’ annual event I think we will pull off an even bigger success next year – in our newly renovated Egmont Community Hall!