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Project Contact:
Suzanna Wolff     SuzannaWolff@comcast.net

Volunteer Organization Name:
The Guild of the Jacksonville Symphony

Orchestra Name:
The Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra

City:
Jacksonville

State/Province:
Florida

Meeting group size of the orchestra:

Number of active members in the volunteer organization?
201-500

Name of the project:
Thirsty Thursdays

Project Description:
Our membership team wanted to design a project for new members that would allow them to work together, form friendships, develop leadership within their group, and at the same time, contribute to a Guild major program. By working together as a group, we hoped they would develop positive feelings about the Guild and see that they could make a difference, inspite of being new. Knowing that the Guild wanted to reintroduce Wine Nights to the Symphony Showhouse, our new member group project soon grew into "Thirsty Thursdays"! One outstanding new member suggested this name as a "blast from her past" that had been synonymous with a "relaxed gathering of friends". At our New Member Orientation, our obvious Event Chair announced that she had found a wine expert who would be willing to not only donate the wine , but also conduct a fun wine tasting event for us. Other new members quickly joined in to help host the three parties as well as to prepare appetizers using recipes from our Guild's new cookbook. Thirsty Thursdays was successful in so many ways. During the Showhouse, we hosted approximately 300 guests who enjoyed wine, music and appetizers. Our Designers were happy as we were able to enhance attendance for those three evenings. The food was delicious and helped to increase sales of our Guild cookbook. Also, due to the clever event name and our efforts to engage new members, we were highlighted in a major newspaper article, bringing additional publicity to the Showhouse. And best of all, our new members had a fun, successful start to their Guild membership that will surely carry over to their future years of Guild volunteering . New leadership talent was identified as shown by the fact that three event participants will join our Guild Board next year. In addition, another event participant will move on to co-chair our 2009 Showhouse Preview Party. With regards to membership retention, all of our event participants have renewed their Guild memberships! Finally, in retrospect, the scope of the project was too small to engage the whole 50 member group. Therefore, next year we will continue Thirsty Thursdays but add a second group project, for greater new member involvement.

Role and number of volunteers involved:
Four volunteers were needed to plan this project. They were involved in planning the desired look of the event, including location, menu, dates and times of the event and decorations. For each of the 3 events, seven volunteers were needed to prepare and serve food, set-up and clean-up. This event was completely staffed by volunteers, including our vintner and our harpist. Early on, one hour of time was given by our Guild paid administrative assistant, as we brainstormed ideas for the event.

Planning Start Date:
N/A

Project Dates:
N/A

Gross revenue from all sources:
$2,550.00

Total expenses for this project:
$0.00

Net Revenue (Expense):
$2,550.00

The total value of all in-kind contributions of donated products and services.
1. wine donated was valued at $750 2. harpist time donated was valued at $75 3. food donated was valued at $600