Recap: The 2009 Western Sonoma County Historical Society "High Tea" Fundraiser

Saturday last (can you tell I've been busy lately? ;o) ), we (and I use the term "we" extremely loosely cuz, Lord knows, I didn't do that much work on it...) held our 3rd Annual "High Tea" fundraiser for the Western Sonoma County Historical Society (where I serve on the Board as "President") in the Cottage at Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Farm (historical site) in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, Northern California.

My minor contribution (as in past years) was SUPPOSED to be leading tours around the Farm after each of the three seatings --

Well, it POURED down rain for about three days before and again ON the day of the Tea, too -- but, does jean balk at the prospect of getting sprinkled with a few raindrops?

Oh, HECK, no!  ;o)

Undaunted, I donned my "period costume" of long, black, "empire-waisted" dress with short, lace faux camisole; long-sleeved, Vee-hemmed, white and silver lace overjacket; wide-brimmed, straw, ribbon & floral-decorated, ladies hat with my mary-janes and gloves and made the 45-minute drive (IN the still-pouring rain) to get there.

I arrived at 1:00 pm to find out that I'd mis-read the actual time of the first tour on the email notification I was sent of 11:30 am as "1:30 pm" .

OOPS!  8^0 ! ! My bad... ;o)

But, no matter... Did I mention that it was pouring down rain? Yah, well, so nobody wanted to go on the tour in the pouring rain anyway. (Some people have absolutely NO STAMINA!) ;^D

And the ladies on the Tea Committee who were working their TAILS off in the Cottage kitchen (and serving the attendees in the front room) -- seeing to all of the special touches that make the Tea so well-loved -- said I might as well go home and, if I would, call the other lady who was coming in to do the last tour and tell her there was no need...

(Above: Volunteers Mary [front] and Kathleen await the third seating of guests at the High Tea.)

(Above: Sally [right] -- who also serves as the "Master Decorator" for the event -- takes a brief break from dishwashing as Rae [left] puts the finishing touches on the goodies for the third seating at the High Tea.)

Well, I thought about that for a minute or two and said, "Hey! Why don't I just give a very short -- like 2 minute -- talk on the background of the Farm while everyone's still eating and then I could take questions if there are any from the attendees? The whole presentation, like, 10 minutes -- MAX!"

They said to go ahead and try it and, try it, I did -- actually, we did more than try it --

CUZ,

after giving a little background on the Farm for the 1:30 and 2:30 audiences, everybody agreed that it was a BIG SUCCESS and really helped to inform those who were at the Farm for the first time exactly what the significance of the place was...

Plus, I got a LOT of really pertinent and great questions (ones that, FORTUNATELY, I knew all the answers to... WHEW!) ;o)

But that WASN'T even the BEST part!

I was listing off some of the events we hold at the Farm during the year and mentioned what a fun event the "Cemetery Walk" is that we hold each year in October (this October will be our 7th year!) and a couple of the visitors who had been to one or two of the Cemetery Walks in previous years, I guess, were gushing about how great it is...

So, I mentioned that it's a "sell-out event" every year and, if any of them were even THINKING they MIGHT want to go, they should get their tickets right away to guarantee the time of the performance they'd prefer. (We do 4 performances, at 5:30 pm, 6:15, 7:00 & 7:45, each night for two nights.)

AND, the very next day, one of the ladies who is also on the Cemetery Walk Committee (as WELL as the "High Tea" Committee) emailed everyone and said she'd gotten a phone call from one of the Tea attendees who purchased EIGHT tickets to the Cemetery Walk in advance and mentioned that she was trying to get some other friends to call and get tickets, too, so they could buy out one entire performance of the Walk!

So, pouring rain or no pouring rain, I was glad I went (and the other Committee members were, too!) :^D

The High Tea "theme" last year was something like "A Paris Bistro" where one of our talented members had painted a 6 1/2 ft. tall picture of the Eiffel Tower that greeted people when they walked in. (Link to that article HERE.)

This year, it was a "Country" theme with little tufts of straw, (white plastic) hen's eggs and milk cans everywhere along with all the flowers, old-time family photographs and general "chachkies". It looked very cute:

 (Above: As you can see, there were a few empty chairs on account of the rain... :o(  But, that's OKAY -- beCAUSE the tickets were all paid in ADVANCE so the Society gets to keep the money for its projects ANYWAY! :^D )

And everyone I saw, anyway, seemed to be having a really great time!

(Above: Pam's "service with a smile" -- and REFILLS, TOO!?!? Wow! ;o) )

And -- AND -- We brought in about $1,000 profit to go toward the support of the Historical Society's projects!!

All-in-all, a pretty successful "High Tea" DESPITE the rain! :^D

Well, gotta go now, all my precious Gather friends... From the ole singlewide here in the wild hinterlands of Sonoma County, Northern California --

See ya next time!

luv,
jean

(Note: For information about Luther Burbank's Gold Ridge Farm or the Western Sonoma County Historical Society and/or an events calendar, access the Society's webpages HERE.)