How Nice Is That!
Several times recently I have mentioned that the number of Gala Balls and major Awards Dinners has decreased over the last few years. This, I assume, is due to the number of Runs, Races, Marathons and Bike Rides that has increased. It is also the reason we changed our Calendar of Events format and added a section devoted to “Cycles, Runs and Challenges”. Obviously it is much less expensive for a charity to join a run, or even to plan their own, than it is to organise a charity ball.
However, someone very close to The DatebooK and its workings recently brought some extremely interesting information to my attention.
“Looking through last year’s Calendar of Events (2018) I counted 18 Balls plus various Gala Dinners. So it appears that charities are still having large-scale, high-end events. As we know, the principal reason for a Ball or a large Awards Dinner is to raise funds for charity. In that case, organisers must be covering the initial investment as well as raising proper funds for the charity. Otherwise why would charities continue to have them.” A very good point!
As we all know, it is very expensive to organise a Ball. Not only do you have the cost of the venue and the food, you also have everything else to consider …. wine, reception beverages, band or DJ, decor, table favours …. the list goes on and on.
In some cases the charity is able to acquire a major sponsor which is, of course, just fantastic. There is also the option of offering various smaller aspects of the evening to sponsors. Look for someone who would like to sponsor the wine, or the pre-dinner reception or even the invitations. Smaller sponsorships often are much more appealing and can be just as helpful. However, expensive as it may be, there is nothing like a beautiful Ball.
So I decided to see what the first four months of this year had to offer …. to see how this looked considering that January and February are quite often relatively quiet months. To my surprise, I found that there were eleven events that fell into the Balls and Gala Dinners category …. this at a time when the outdoor fundraising events take over the calendar. It looks like I am corrected …. or at least starting to be corrected …. in my assumption.
How nice is that! Here’s hoping the future will provide us with more gala evenings.
Mary Kay Eyerman
E-mail: [email protected]