“Planning Your Foundation Dinner”
Helpful Hints to help you Plan and Organize Your Event
by
Scott T. Barnes
Area 8 Assistant District Governor 2009-2012
Past Charter President 2005-2006 Sparks Centennial
Past President 2001-2002 Reno Central
767 Spanish Springs Road
Sparks, Nevada 89434
H: (775)-358-5970
C: (775)-772-0256
Assistant Governor Training
December 3, 2011
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INTRODUCTION
Each year, we gather in November to celebrate the work of The Rotary Foundation (TRF), OUR Foundation, and the people who support it so generously. We also use this opportunity to educate our members on all the wonderful things that TRF does to improve the lives and heath of others. One of our tasks as Assistant Governor is to help promote and organize the annual Foundation Dinner for our area. The following information is what I have learned and done, but is by no means, the only way to create a meaningful event for your Rotarians.
The mission of The Rotary Foundation:
Doing Good in the World
… To enable Rotarians to advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through the improvements of health, the support of education, and the alleviation of poverty.
GOALS OF A FOUNDATION DINNER
Foundations dinners aim to achieve:
· A Fun and enjoyable event for Everyone
· A better understanding of TRF
· A sense of pride of The Rotary Foundation, OUR Foundation
· Recognition of the generous supports of TRF
· Continued inspiration of the work of TRF
· A desire to come back next year
PLANNING YOUR EVENT
It is never too early to start planning. The longer you wait, the fewer venues are available for booking, and speakers may have already obligated themselves with other speaking engagements and events. Also, your District Governor will ask each area for its Foundation Dinner date and you want to get on his/her calendar early. It will be very valuable to start speaking to your Club Presidents about the Foundation Dinner at Pre-PETS. While at PETS, you may want to remind your Club Presidents to think about candidates for potential Foundation Dinner Speakers.
The following is a sample time-line for planning your event. This assumes that your Foundation Dinner will be during the month of November:
March – June Search for a Key Note Speaker, prepare a budget and determine if you can afford the speaker, more about this later.
July Agree on a date, verify the availability of the District Governor, and book the venue.
July – August Prepare a preliminary budget.
September – October Promote Event, Design and Order Tickets.
October Design and Order Program.
November Have a great event!
Other things to consider for your event might be:
· Will there be a Fund-Raising component?
· Formal or Informal?
· Dinner Music?
· Dancing following the event?
· Other Entertainment?
· Will your venue require a Liquor License or Permit?
· Insurance needed? If so, see:
www.rotary.org/en/members/generalinfomation/insurance/pages/certificateofinsurance.aspx
Early planning will allow you the ability to put together a great event. Starting early will also allow you to evaluate more options and deal with other issues that may come up.
CHOOSING A SPEAKER
Choosing the Keynote Speaker is usually the toughest part of the event. Once you have the speaker, everything else seems to fall into place. There always seems to be a lot of discussion on whether the speaker should be a Rotarian or someone else. Because we are always very aware of our budget, some of the professional speaker fees may be out of our price range. With Rotarians, most do not charge a fee; however, you will need to budget for the travel expenses and hotel costs. The venue may comp a room, which will help your budget. Many Rotarians will not ask for any compensation, but you may consider making a donation to TRF in their name as a token of appreciation.
Another option that has worked well in the past is to have one or two warm-up speakers prior to the Keynote Speaker. We have used past RYE Students, Past Ambassadorial Scholars, GSE, etc. These participants also show the benefit that our students have received because of funding from TRF. These speakers can also help our members make a face to face connection with the money that they have donated.
CHOOSING A DATE
You will have a few people to consider when scheduling your event. The Speaker’s availability will have an influence on the date of your event. If you plan early, you can also secure the District Governor. If not, you may have to get a few dates from the Speaker and match them with the availability of those of the District Governor. As you can imagine, once you have the Speaker and the District Governor set, then securing the venue may be a challenge. While most areas plan their Foundation Dinner for November, it is not a requirement. A few areas wait until the Spring. Once again, advanced planning will allow you time to sort all of these out.
Each year we discuss whether or not to have the event on the weekend or week-night. The real trick is to see what other events may be going on in town. You may want to avoid those conflicts. Also, it is customary for the Area Clubs to be dark the week of the Foundation Dinner to help with the attendance.
CHOOSING A HOST CLUB AND VENUE
We have a number of options for the event venue in the Reno/Sparks area. Usually, we rotate where the Rotary clubs meet. Choosing a club to act as the host for the event simplifies contract negotiations as well as using an existing relationship. The club knows who to contact and how things work at that property. This also gives the host club a chance to show off where their club meets. You may already know that many Rotarians do not venture out of their home club. Another benefit to using a venue where a club meets is that the Rotary Decorations, Banners and Flags are already there! The only catch with this is that the hosting Rotary Club also serves as the Treasurer and Accountant for the event and has to collect money from the other clubs. At the end of the day, the hosting Rotary Club feels a sense of pride following a fun and successful event.
BUDGET
Now for the tricky part; the BUDGET. For the Foundation Dinner, the budget may be very simple. Attached, please find the actual costs for our event held this last November. The costs associated with our Foundation Dinner were:
1. Meals
2. Keynote Speaker’s Air Fare and hotel room if not comped
3. Keynote Speaker’s Foundation Donation
4. Free meals for the speakers and District Governor and his/her spouse
5. Discounted meals for Rotaractors and Interactors
6. Printing Costs
Our goal was to keep the event affordable at $40.00 per person. With a meal cost of approximately $30 each plus the added costs, we ended up very close to a break even number. In the past, the Area 8 clubs agreed to split the additional costs or share the additional revenue. The challenge lies with getting enough people to attend to break even. Some years we exceed our projections and other years, we fell short as we did this year. Each club will have to pay $27.97 to cover our lower projected number of attendees. To encourage as many Rotaractors as possible to attend, we only charged them $10 each and worked the remaining amount into the budget. Last year we did the same with Interactors as we chartered three new clubs.
MARKETING AND PROMOTION
Marketing and Promotion are keys to the success of the event. Once again, by planning early, each club can work the event into their calendars. We still have to get the word out to the members. Facebook, webpages and club newsletters are all fine, but we really need the help of the Foundation Chairs from each club to help promote the event. Items that you may want to have professionally created are:
· “Save the Date” flyer
· Formal Invitation
· Program
· Tickets
Some areas save money by shifting the responsibility to the clubs to provide a list of attendees and to collect the money. The clubs then pay the host club.
PROGRAM & PROTOCOL
Once all the arrangements have been made and contracts signed, the next step is to put together the program and script for the evening. This is one of those tasks that is always done at the last minute. This is mainly due to changes that almost always occur. For the printing of the program, we always use Digiprint here in Reno. This is a Rotarian-owned business and they always work with us. Digiprint can usually get us what we need within a few days. Regardless of the printer that you use, always communicate with them and determine your drop-dead date in order to have the programs printed on time.
Who gets to be the Master of Ceremonies (MC) for the evening? That is up to you and your Club Presidents. Many times the Assistant Governor is the MC. However, that duty can be delegated if you wish and you may still act as the Producer for the evening. Attached, you will find two more samples for your use. One is a sample program from a recent foundation dinner and the other is a script from our President’s Dinner from the District Conference two years ago. The latter is more detailed and shows the times associated with the event. This worked hand in hand with the “minute-by-minute” that we routinely use with the district conference. With all that was going on that evening, we stayed on time and finished on time. The MC has the duty of watching the time and keeping things on track. It is important that the MC use any flex time in the program to make up for other sections going over. The MC should also keep an eye on the meal service. Sometimes, if the audience finishes the dinner early, the MC can announce that the program will be starting in ten minutes. But the MC also has to monitor if the room is quiet or if people are enjoying the quiet time in the program to mingle and visit with other Rotarians and Friends.
The key to running a smooth program is rehearsal. Typically the Club Presidents all play a part in the program. You will notice in the programs that I have included, that each president has a speaking part. All the speakers arrive early at the event, and we do a few run throughs. This would include people presenting the colors, and at our President’s Dinner at the 2010 District Conference, we even had the Bag Pipes Practice with the Boy Scouts. It was fun and provided us with a better idea of how to stage them. Whether you use a head table on a riser or not, have the presenters line up off stage to the left or right. By staging the presenters, you can cut out the time it takes for people to walk up to do their part.
Protocol is very important in these events and acknowledging high ranking Rotarians is crucial. Included with this is the Rotary Protocol from RI. PDG Wyn Spiller has done a lot of research in this area as well as PRIVP Jerry Hall. Both can help you should you have any Protocol-related questions. You will notice that I list a lot of dignitaries on my script. For the MC, it is very easy to list more people on your script then cross them off if they do not attend. Also, I always have a current directory with me. It lists all of the PDGs and other dignitaries as well as their spouses. You never know who might show up at the last minute.
ON THE DAY OF THE EVENT
Be sure to either meet the Keynote Speaker yourself or assign a person to be their aide. Nothing is more unsettling to a speaker from out-of-town to not know where he or she is going. Since many Rotary Speakers travel a lot, you may also wish to order a fruit basket for their room and give them time to relax before the event.
As with all events, be there early so you can personally check out the room arrangement, lighting, AV and so on. You may also wish to assign seating for the dignitaries and guests using table tents. If you do that, don’t assume that they will find their seats on their own. As AG (or the MC), meet each VIP and Special Guests at the door and show them where they will be seated or assign that duty to someone else. As mentioned previously, leave plenty of time to rehearse with your group. The more time you take to practice, the better your event will be.
CLOSING OUT THE BOOKS
Now for the fun part: closing out the books. Keep a file of all the information that you have collected, because it will be very valuable to you next year. Our area has a debriefing meeting, after the dust clears, to go over all the money issues. We also talk about what we can do better next year. With proper planning and thought, your Foundation Dinner will be a great experience, and your members will remember it for a long time. Good luck!
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