(by Jean Mills) When Carl Delaney took over management of the Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club in 1991, his mandate was to make the club profitable. Using some creative ideas for a big-ticket fundraising draw, and some terrific partners, volunteers, and participants, he found a way.
“The Club was in serious financial difficulties,” says Delaney about those early days. “My primary task was to get the Club back to a profitable business. Not an easy task given that we were close to $1 million in debt, however, as the saying goes: never say never.”
The club decided to run a draw for a big-ticket item, but what? They needed something that would sell.
(Poster courtesy Silver Fox Curling and Yacht Club)
“Our first draw was for a motorhome, and we had to sell 500 tickets at $200 a ticket to make the event profitable. We also had to give buyers a reason to buy the ticket and just not a chance to win a prize,” says Delaney.
Taking advantage of the club’s empty ice shed, which was being used during the summer for wedding receptions, auctions and other events, the fundraisers decided to offer a meal with the draw ticket. That was the start of the annual Motorhome Dinner Draw. Ticket holders attended, but they were also encouraged to bring a companion for an additional $25 dinner ticket.
A lobster dinner, a bottle of wine for every four people, two drink tickets for every ticket holder – and the chance to win a motorhome – sounds like a great evening out, but the organizers didn’t stop there. For a twist, they made the event a reverse draw: the prize would go to the last ticket out of the drum. Delaney explains:
“To make it even more interesting we added a prize, valued at about $200 every 20th number drawn up to the 430th number out of the drum. To add more chances to win, we added a prize for the last nine ticket owners left. This created lots of excitement as we asked them all to come up to the stage for the final 10 tickets to be drawn. We then draw five tickets and give them a prize each.”