For those of you who thought I had forgotten how to write, you were correct, but after a refresher I am back for at least one week’s worth of rant for the Tack.
Have you noticed that as you grow older change is more and more inevitable, but, with each passing year, you attempt to resist change with every ounce of your being? Or maybe that is just me. Well, our Club is about to experience some significant changes which many of you know about, but about which I only recently became informed.
Before last year’s TV auction, Time Warner became Spectrum. Right after the auction Spectrum fired all of the employees who used to help us with our auction and announced that it would be discontinuing that type of public support going forward which you can do when you’re a monopoly. That left our Club and Saco Bay wondering what we would do to still put on the auction or do we scrap it and come up with a new fundraiser to replace the $25,000.00 +/- we received each year from the auction. There was some inquiry to Thornton Academy and Biddeford Public access about continuing the auction on the local public access channels without Spectrum, but ultimately our Board voted to end the auction and replace it with another fundraiser.
The fundraiser suggested by Saco Bay is a much larger $100 raffle. The details of the fundraiser must be worked out, but the concept is truly promising. I would encourage everyone to be open minded and really step up and support the new fundraiser which we will continue to do with Saco Bay.
It is incredibly important, however, that we recognize that this new fundraiser means that we will no longer do our traditional fall $100 raffle that has been an incredibly successful fundraiser for the club for about 40 years. It was successful because of Earl and Carl Goodwin and it was the brainchild of Earl. It was an event that poured $14,000.00 +/- into our coffers every year without fail. The fact is that it does not make sense to do a $100 raffle in the fall and another larger raffle in the spring. What does make sense, however, is to stop and acknowledge what the $100 raffle has meant to our club and to thank the Goodwin’s for their years of devotion to that event before we bury it. Yes, change is inevitable but respect what preceded the change.
It is also important that we acknowledge the death of our TV auction after 28 years. Our auction was the envy of the district and often imitated. I was involved in all of them and Bob Begin and I hosted the first bunch of auctions staying on the air all day. The auctions were hard work, collaborative, successful, but most of all fun. We used the auctions as training for our vice presidents and we quickly realized if you can pull off the auction you can certainly run the Club. The auction brought out the best in our best Rotarians. Julie Villemaire, Karen Chasse, Denis Elie, Rollie Eon, and many more stepped up every year to make the auction a huge success.
Unfortunately, our auction is another victim of corporate American, but in this day and age of social media and instant gratification, let’s pause for at least one second to acknowledge that the auction was and will always be a huge part of the history of our Club and should not be summarily discarded like yesterday’s trash without at least some acknowledgement.
Yes, change is inevitable, and it is caused by all sorts of factors. We need to embrace and welcome change, but not at the total expense of history. I, for one, will miss the old $100 raffle and the auction and what they meant to the Club, but I will do all that I can to support our new fundraiser, the success of which will come from all that we learned from our past efforts. Okay, now I can kick the dirt onto the old $100 raffle and the TV auction knowing that at least I have given their proper respect.
