I just got off the phone with
@adventureduo - we're good.
First off, we're both tired of everybody bitching about Toys for Tots. As Dave announced publicly last year at T4T, he's not doing it anymore. Now it's not happening in 2015 because no one wanted to step up. Me included. Just not enough bandwidth.
I don't agree with the comment on FB by
@brentbba about what we plan on doing in 2016 as being a "rebranded" Toys for Tots event. Rebranding implies that we're going to take something and slap a different name on it, a cheap knock off of the original. My intent (as clearly stated above) is to add an event to our schedule of Rendezvous events,
each one performs a community service. The Christmas Rendezvous concept will support T4T.
But it's going to be a completely different event and has nothing to do with the past. Not the same vendors, not focused on a raffle, and Dave Druck is retired so let's leave the poor guy alone and stop bugging him about it. There will be absolutely no connection between what he did and what I plan to do.
Folks ask "why did Dave retire?". Because it's a LOT of work. Cal4Wheel did a T4T event for years and they learned that what drove folks was the raffle, take that away and interest drops. You'd think it's about the kids but not so for everyone. They want free stuff. Dave learned this too and he got burned out after doing it for 8 years. I don't blame him. So when I look at lessons learned with these types of events (TDS or Surf and Turf at Pismo being another fine example) I have to think of sustainability. My intent is to do something different with an eye towards sustainability, and bringing the focus back on the kids.