Hey Gang,
Well, Las Cruces' Air Fair '99 has come and gone... And the
"Raffleidget" has gone with it. A number of you bought tickets on the
car and others have expressed an interest in holding a raffle for your
own local club so here is the story of how it was done and what the
results were, at least from my perspective.
You may recall that the British Motorcar Club of Southern New Mexico
bought a limping MG Midget and rebuilt the engine prior to raffling off
the car to raise funds for the club and a local food bank. We decided to
limit our ticket sales to a maximum of 2,500 tickets and to guarantee
delivery of the car regardless of how few tickets might be sold... We
did not want to get into one of those deals where a guy wins a raffle
for a car then gets told "Sorry, you gotta come up with another $7,000
because we didn't sell as many tickets as we hoped."
This course was, of course, somewhat risky and gave the Raffle Chairman
some sleepless nights. But, hey! If you are going to do something, do it
right! Since the tickets were base priced at $5 each but were to be sold
on a sliding scale according to quantity, we figured we'd average around
$4 per ticket. Therefore, we stood to make a maximum gross of about
$10,000 and a maximum net of around $6-7,000. When you consider that our
little club's treasury frequently has less than a thousand bucks in it,
these are big numbers.
One of our club members offered to sell a project car to the club and
several of us were empanelled as a committee to examine the vehicle. We
found it to be in remarkably good condition with the only real concern
being a spun thrust washer. Although many drivers would have elected to
drive the car "as was" we decided to proceed with an engine rebuild, I
guess to give our club members something to do with their weekends.
The car's owner agreed to wait until we had receipts from ticket sales
to transfer ownership. To provide working capital for the engine rebuild
(which was expected to cost less than $400 for parts and services)
without depleting the club's general treasury, several of us bought
fairly large blocks of tickets right off the bat.
We kicked off ticket sales last April during our premier event, our
annual British Car Days. Unfortunately, our show was curtailed by high
winds and rain and ticket sales were disappointing to say the least.
Most of our club members accepted ticket books to try to sell tickets to
friends, neighbors, customers, clients, patients, relatives... You know
the drill! Many members were reasonably successful in their sales
efforts but still, sales seemed awfully slow.
The engine rebuild proceeded apace... The car was scheduled to be done
by the first weekend in September and very nearly made that target.
In September the Raffle Chairman, a country gentleman/pecan farmer by
the name of Ed Townley, got permission for us to display the Raffleidget
in the local indoor shopping mall over a weekend. The car was driven in
under its own power -- purring like the proverbial kitten -- and parked
on the mall's main thoroughfare, between Dillards and Service
Merchandise, an excellent location! A number of club members took 2 hour
shifts at the sales table throughout the weekend and sales were brisk,
though it was a pain to try to keep the rugrats off the car! (How come
parents don't try to control their kids any more?) We totaled about $900
in sales over the weekend...
By the time the evening of October 17th, the night before the drawing of
the winning name, rolled around we were immensely relieved to find that
we had taken in at least $4700. We couldn't tell exactly how much we had
because some ticket books were still checked out but we knew we had
recovered all the club's costs and would put something into the coffers.
October 18 eventually dawned clear and cold but when Janet and I
unlimbered 'Beamish and Tigger for the 20 mile run out to the Airport,
it was clear, cold, windy, and dark. We stuffed chairs and ice chests
and books and cameras and extra clothes into those cavernous Sunbeam
trunks and bundled into heavy coats, mufflers, and caps and headed up
the road.
The cars were running beautifully so the ride was enjoyable though cold.
Of course, Tigger needed gas so I had to stop at a station. Of course,
'Beamish did not need gas as Janet delighted in pointing out to me...
She had "two or three gallons, more than enough to make it to the
Airport, back home, and back to a gas station. Chortle, chortle,
chortle..."
The car club was scheduled to meet at a central point and drive out to
the airport together but stopping for gas made us late, so everyone had
already departed. I, however, knew that the convoy was being led by a
couple of slowpokes so there was never any doubt we would catch the
convoy on -- if not before -- the big hill at the edge of town.
Well, we caught them before the hill and passed them on the hill.
(Tigger can only go so slow for so long before I feel the need to growl
a bit. I mean, I believe in a sedate pace for this sort of parade, but
5 mph? On a busy 4 lane? NAH!)
Once the sun was up at the airport the day turned calm, sunny, and
balmy. As nice a day as anyone could ask for, strictly sunscreen,
sunglasses, and shirt sleeves.
We wound up with 13 or 14 LBC's on display while on the other side of
the hanger was the local Mustang Club with 30 or more cars and a little
further down was the local Hudson Club with half-a-dozen cars. The
Mustang Club very generously included both the Hudsons and our LBC's in
their "Best Car of the Air Fair" trophy competition and brought around
ID numbers to display on everyone's windscreen so the public could vote
for the most popular entry. (The eventual winner, by-the-bye, was one of
their own cars, a black Mustang II!)
The Air Fair, an annual event here, was, itself, pretty neat most of the
time. Lots of airplanes on display, lots of skydivers, lots of aerobatic
shows. Even had an alleged "live fire" demo by a strafing A1D... Yeah,
right! The culmination of the show was the same A1D making a "napalm
run" at the edge of the airfield. Big, loud, oily 'splosions, just like
napalm. Yeah, right! (I am sorry to report that the Air Fair organizers
did not act on my suggestion that they find a few burning babies to
display...)
Throughout the day we continued to sell raffle tickets with our club
members manning the sales table and sales were very brisk all day long.
Finally, at 3:30 PM, just after the napalm run, we had a President
Emeritus from somewhere or other draw the winning ticket in front of a
very large crowd. The winner was Ron Vineyard, a resident of Rincon, a
semi-wide spot in the secondary road about 20 or 30 miles north of Las
Cruces. Mr. Vineyard is not known to me or any of our club members but
he seems like a nice guy and he says he is a mechanic who loves old
cars.
Mr. Vineyard drove the Midget home to Rincon.
Janet, Tigger, 'Beamish and I were back at Rancho Cobbo by 5:30 PM,
somewhat windblown and sunburned but happy as... well, happy as
Sunbeamers!
And speaking of beaming, don't you know that is what Ol' Ed Townley,
Rafflemeister of the First Order, was doing when the summary figures
finally got to him last night!
During the Air Fair we took in an additional $1465 from ticket sales. In
total, it turns out that we sold 1561 tickets and generated $6420 in
revenue. (That, incidentally, is an average of about $4.11 per ticket.)
Our total cost from the project has come in at about $2300 so our gross
profit before making the Club's cash donation to Casa de Peregrinos Food
Bank is about $4100.
Definitely enough to keep the wolves from the doors for a while.
Was it worth doing? You bet! Could your club do it? Maybe. What made it
work?
1. Having an individual -- Ed Townley in our case -- willing and able to
undertake the administrative side of the project.
2. Finding a decent car at a decent price.
3. Having the capital to undertake the project.
4. Having access to a major mall and a major recreational event.
5. Having members willing to participate and sell, sell, sell!
If I can provide any additional information to any of you who are
considering a car raffle as a fund raiser, please don't hesitate to call
on me.
Thank you, once again, to the many people who bought tickets from me. I,
incidentally, sold $340 in tickets to you "listers!" I truly wish all of
you -- or at least ONE of you -- could have won.
Cheers!
--Colin Cobb, Las Cruces, NM
'65 Tiger MKI & '66 Morgan Plus 4 & '67 Alpine SV
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