Summer Hummer Report

by Betty Roberge

The Summer Hummer committee has really been putting in some hours the last 10 days before the newsletter went to print for the May issue. Covid-19 has kicked our ass and a lot of decisions had to be made. Will we be able to gather in a group larger than 10 people by June? Will our WI Covid numbers rise in the next few weeks that will cause some other Stay at Home enactment? Can we believe the statistics that we know can be so easily skewed? Will some of our members stay away because of the risk of spread? Will ABATE itself and individual members get fined if we have the Hummer anyway? Will vendors and bands still be willing to come being so close to the time of the Safer-At-Home order expiration? What now, after Governor Evers extended his order? Do We Take A Chance? If our attendance is down, how will that effect our bottom line – this is after all, the biggest fundraiser of the year? Should we still kick off our new event called the Taste of Hummer – a beer, wine, cheese, and meat tasting? If we have the Taste, and our numbers are down, will our members think the Taste failed?…or will they realize it is a result of Covid-19? What about our bands, will they sock us for payment if we cancel? Do we come up with a Covid-19 the Hummer that Never Was t-shirt? How can we sell all of our Summer Cash Raffle tickets when we can’t get together before the Hummer? Our heads were starting to spin. Wow….who would have thought all of this needed to be discussed at the time we normally would have been advertising the heck out of the party and really starting to gear up? What do we do? And the decision needed to be made soon because of the newsletter deadline for the May issue.

The ever-so-reluctant decision was finally made, that after numerous hours of hashing it out, the committee decision was that it was in the best interest of ABATE to cancel the 2020 Summer Hummer. We advised the Board of Directors of that fact and the Board voted to accept the decision of the committee. What a Hummer bummer and a total let down. If you’re like me, you love the Summer Hummer and, in my case, I love the land as well.

With all this in mind, we do need to make a concentrated effort to get all of our Summer Cash Raffle Tickets sold, and the drawing WILL take place at the land on June 20, 2020. We are only selling 500 raffle tickets this year at a cost of $20 each and a total payout of 20 prizes or $5,700.

I am challenging all of our members to buy (1) ticket at $20 in lieu of what you would have spent at the Hummer this year. Because the Hummer is cancelled, and Covid-19 caused many of our events to either be cancelled or postponed, our expected 2020 ABATE profits will be down for the year and we are looking at ways to offset that loss. Selling all raffle tickets for all of our 2020 raffles will help us offset some of that loss.

Wish there was better news…