The big winner on Friday night wasn't the ecstatic golfer Koena Sesele with his wheelbarrow full of bottles of the good stuff. It wasn't even the Springboks who gave their traditional rivals the All Blacks a rare and thorough thrashing later that evening.
It also wasn't the Parkview Golf Club, even though they were superb hosts to an enthusiastic crowd of rowdy (but well behaved) golfers and New Dawners of the kind that they probably seldom see in their sometimes staid environment.
The big winner was of course The Rotary Club of Johannesburg New Dawn at our premier fundraising event of the year. That was to the tune of more than R125 000.
While all the money is not in yet, the gross amount to date is about R125 000, out of which the Parkview Golf Club still needs to be paid for green fees, halfway house meals and the curry buffet for dinner.
More than R25 000 of the takings are from the raffle for the barrow of booze. The take just for Friday was R11 400 and the rest came from pre-sales like Jeni Lobel's R1400 for her birthday lunch.
Included in the raffle amount for the barrow of booze was an extra R2100 for the raffle of a bottle of Johnny Walker Black donated by Barbara Angove for the closest score prediction for the rugby. Alas, there was no second prize because my score was the closest but for one of the golfers, Alexander Buchanan, who guessed even closer to the real runaway score of 35-7.
A big thank you to everybody who pitched in to help on Friday and all the sponsors of bottles for the wheelbarrow, of contributions to the fantastic prize table and of connections for the hole sponsorships.
As usual the planning for the next golf day started at the 19th hole on Friday and there promises to be some exciting new developments including an emphasis on getting many more hole sponsors.
A very big thanks too to Nazreen Benjamin and Natasha Sallie from Adele Dabbs's office for once again taking on the registration and creating sense out of the chaos created by Mike MacDonald and Linda Vink!
This all means that we haven't done too badly compared with previous years.
In 2015 the income was about R40 000 of which the club kept almost R30 000, with the raffle contributing R10 000. This grew up to 2019, when the income was over R115 000, of which the club kept more than R75 000. The raffle takings were R33 000.
Then came Covid, with no golf in 2020, an iffy 2021 but a bounce back last year to earnings of more than R80 000 and a raffle contribution of R29 500.
With money in the bank already over R100 000, some 80 golfers in the field, an eye-catching wheelbarrow full of thirst-provoking tipples, a slap-up curry buffet for dinner and a golf club brimful of enthusiastic golfers, Golf Day 2023 can be pronounced a success. Bring on Golf Day 2024!
This week and next: It's back to Rotary business this week when Frolinah Malaza and Mpho Mphatse from Lemang Fresh Table will be speaking to the club about their efforts at the National School of Art, part of the New Dawn seedling project.
We'll also be seeing them the following week at the NSA during the District Governor's visit to New Dawn, as that meeting will take place at the NSA before those who can, depart with the DG for a tour through Soweto. The details are all in the WhatsApp chat group if you can join.
A Thought for the Week: Wanting to meet an author because you like his work is like wanting to meet a duck because you like paté. - Margaret Atwood (1939 -)
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