The 11th Annual
Vines of March Kickoff!
Save the date: March 4th, 2023
The Vines of March Wine Tasting and Auction is West Hartford Rotary’s major fundraiser. Without the funds from this event, we cannot support our food pantry, our dictionary project, the Ugandan dental clinic, the Holiday Book Drive, and more.
Your responsibilities as a Rotarian…
- The 11th Annual Vines of March event is Saturday, March 4th 2023. MARK THIS DATE ON YOUR CALENDAR RIGHT NOW! Treat it like an important wedding - You need to show up. Your help and attendance is essential!
- Set a goal to sell at least four tickets and preferably more.
- Set a goal to sell sponsorships. Ask your dentist, your attorney, your financial advisor, your plumber, any store that you frequent. But PLEASE ASK!
- Set a goal to obtain auction items. What would you like to see in an auction? Figure that out and ask the retailer for contributions.
- Set a goal to help the food committee in obtaining food for the event and transporting it.
- Be there to help set up, run it, and clean up.
Over the next several weeks, the framework for Vines will be distributed. We’ll include a lot of helpful tips for obtaining these goals, but if you truly believe in what we do and are sincere in your approach, asking for donations is easy. Tip #1 - You’ll want to prepare yourself with a brief elevator speech* of what the Rotary Club does.
* What's an Elevator speech? If you were in an elevator and had 30 seconds to promote Rotary to someone, what would you say?
Here’s mine:
Rotary is a local and international service club made up of folks who want to make the world a little bit better. This year our local club brought 3 shipping palettes ($8000!) of food from COSTCO over to the food pantry. We formed a caravan and everyone loaded up their car. Our club's contributions were matched by a grant from the Rotary Foundation. We’ve supported a bunch of local events and charities too. We have a project where we give every third grader in town a dictionary. Plus we support a holiday book drive which gives books to disadvantaged kids for them to keep.
This year, we are going to partner with the Kampala Seven Hills Club and Rotary International in order to establish a dental clinic in Nkozi, Uganda.
I belong to Rotary because all of our little efforts combine to make a difference locally and in the world. And I enjoy the company of like-minded people. We meet regularly at the Pond House, let me know if you’d like to join us for lunch!
I don’t recite it verbatim, but I know it well enough to riff on it.
We will have weekly meetings immediately following our regular meetings with a hard stop at 1:45 PM
Here’s our committee:
- BMOC - Kyle Egress
- Sponsorships – Rick Liftig
- Food - Carolyn Malon and Trish Kiely
- Auction Items – John Smealie and Robin Krueger
- Registration – Eileen Rau
- Insurance – Eileen Rau
- Food Inspection
- Liquor Certificate – Dave Gerrol
- Harry Davidson, Mary Silverberg
Posters\Flyers will be available at upcoming meetings