Post Party Wrap-up
Well things are back to normal around here. Store is put back together, my emails are caught up, bills are paid (well mostly..lol) and we are all enjoying sharing things we remembered about the party. Those of us outside had no clue what is was like inside and vice versa. Thanks so much to all of you CR members that made it up. Seeing pictures has been fun so if anyone has any, please email me or post them if you could.
So many people to thank but it must start first with
thanking our Veterans for their service to our country! We hoped to do our small part in recognizing the veterans on
Memorial Day and with your help and generosity, I believe we were successful. Ron and Ellen from
Limpits Reef teamed up with us and as he noted, he has mailed a check in the amount of $456.46 to
"Stars and Stripes Honor Flight". Thank you Ron & Ellen for your support and help with this event. In addition, there was $229.64 in the donation jars for
"VetDogs". We rounded that up to $250 and submitted that earlier today. This donation is in addition to our original purchase of their toys that we purchased for their benefit. So all in all, over $400 went to this great cause.
Your donations are greatly appreciated!
Original Message-----
From: "America's VetDogs Info" [info@vetdogs.org]
Date: 05/29/2014 01:11 PM
Subject: America’s VetDogs (VetDogs.org): Donation Submission Received
Thank you for your $250.00 donation to America’s VetDogs – the Veteran’s K-9 Corps, Inc. We truly appreciate your generosity in helping us help those who have served our country honorably. We train guide dogs for veterans who are blind; service dogs for those with other physical or emotional disabilities, and physical and occupational therapy dogs to work with amputees in military and VA hospitals.
Please note that your donation will show up on your credit card statement as “Guide Dog Foundation,” the sister organization of America’s VetDogs. Please rest assured that your contribution is being put to appropriate use by America’s VetDogs. You will receive your receipt in your mail when we have completed processing your donation. If you have any questions, please contact us at
info@vetdogs.org, or by phone at 866-VETDOGS (866-838-3647) Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time.
Thank you again for your support of America’s VetDogs, and the veterans we serve.
Next I need to thank our family, friends and employees
for all of their hard work, not only that day but the weeks before while we were getting prepared. Plus appreciate them putting up with me ... I am rather impulsive and intense so that adds a little extra excitement at times. :wink5: As normal, my plans and ideas are more than we can accomplish....but we came close. We again this year thank Shawn (Scote) and his brother Jason(plainrt) for their help getting those great Johnsonville brats here as well as our friends Kurt and Joyce taking care of all of the grilling. My wife Judy and daughter Dawn spent the weekend shopping and preparing everything. Our good customer and friend Rich - Tonyssrx (the quiet guy handling the raffles) helped all day setting up and tearing down. We also thank Andria, Andy, Eric and Julie for bringing their frags for you to purchase in the front showroom. Had a whole crew of other family members helping out as well. Our sales reps, Phil and LuAnn worked continuously all day and we greatly appreciate that!
We had so many of you comment on how much you enjoyed the music, Myles and Jamie.
View attachment 2686They were outstanding and the whole band,
Crossfire, performs somewhere every week if you are interested in seeing more of them.
http://crossfirecountry.com/Crossfire/Home.html Myles and Jamie often perform by themselves as well like they did here. Also wish to thank
Glen Gerard for his great magic tricks, if anyone is missing a watch....well I think I know where it went...lol.
http://www.magic4you.com/View attachment 2687
We had
many vendors contribute to this party this year. In no particular order (and I hope I don’t miss anyone):
Wilson Pet Supply
Central Aquatics (Kent Marine, Coral Life, Oceanic)
UPG (Perfecto, Tetra, Marineland)
SeaChem
ATI
Repashy Foods
Alternative Reef - Scott
Aquatop
eLive
General Pet
Tunze - Roger
Quality Marine
Aquatic Life
Boyd (Chemi Pure)
Sustainable Aquatics
I want to
thank them all for their generosity and being a small business owner, I take special note on
Scott's generosity (Alternative Reef). He is the man that makes all the frag plugs many of you use. Pretty much a one man operation yet he took the time (and expense) to send quite a few items that we gave away. Also a special shout out to Roger who distributes the Tunze line. I do very little business with him yet he was very generous in support of our veterans. This is not to take away from anyone else, you can just imagine the amount of requests they must all get for freebees throughout the year.
Please support these companies when you can!
We estimate we had over 400 people attend. Just a guess but we do know that we gave out 227 gifts and in theory that was one per family. Most people came with at least one or two other people, so that’s how we came up with that number.
View attachment 2688
Had a number of people come up from the Chicago area. Always great to see them!! Then we had our Madison area and Fox Valley/Green Bay area customers make the trip as well. We do thank you all!
I want to share a couple posts from some Chicago people that made the trip.
“Brian and Judy,
Thank you so much for yet another awesome event. Your obvious honoring of our veterans is so great and you definitely outdid yourselves this year. For anyone who hasn't had a chance to attend one of these, imagine a full swap, but outdoors with free food (oh God the brats!), even better deals, an awesome live band and a pretty damn good magician. That'll give you a pretty good picture. Thanks again for fostering and welcoming the reefing community in such a big way. I had fully intended to capture a bunch of photos for this post, but I was just too busy having a blast!”
Nate
“Judy saw me and gave me one of her fabulous smiles and said she didn't know I was there. I told her I was laying low because I knew how busy everyone was and I didn't want anyone to have any kind of breakdown. You guys were working your huge hearts out. Thanks again and as always, it was great seeing everyone there. I hope you guys got some rest.
Walt”
We all greatly appreciate their comments,
and their friendship. Means a lot to us!.
We hope you all had a similar experiences.
The great weather sure was a relief. That’s the obvious huge concern in an event like this. We had 125' of tents put up but rain would have made things very uncomfortable. In spite of being such a large group, I have to say we are all pleased that everyone had such a great attitude and was so patient. Overall I think the wait time was not unreasonable and there really is not much more that can be done to reduce it. We have our "after party Employees Party" coming up next week where we talk about what was good and what we can do better in the future, so I am sure we will have some changes. (we just look for excuses to go out with the crew besides their birthdays...lol) We again will toss the idea around about having a "number system" for being waited on, though in the past we decided against it. Always open for suggestions.
I was too busy to know who won the big prize raffles this year... The 29 gal Bio cube and Stand, The 16 gal Innovative Marine Setup, The 93 Cube Tank and Stand and the Radion G2 Light. So congrats to all of you. The final
Veteran raffle, a 75 gallon tank with furniture stand was won by
Jason Jones and we all want to
thank him for his service!!! We tried to ask everyone if they were a vet since they received a few extra goodies courtesy of Best Fish.
We again want to thank all of you who served.
Overall I am pleased with the format this year. We added the entertainment and extra seating with the idea of making it a nicer day for all. This provided a relief from the inside crowds. Bringing more products outside helped as well. We will have to make some decisions about what direction we take this in the future. The growth of this since our first event is rather amazing. We can not handle any more people inside so I do believe more things outside is the key.....but now we are back to the weather concerns. I mentioned Bradley Center to Judy and she mentioned .....well I can't repeat what she said...lol. But seriously,
we are all very thankful that we were able to do this for everyone. Judy and I, as well as the whole
"Best Fish Crew" hope we always meet your expectations and sure hoped you enjoyed yourselves!
Judy, Brian, Kevin, Laura, Tyler, Mark as well as our families and friends. God Bless ~