Our year end dinner and social was held on Saturday November 29th at the Teatro Conference & Event Centre, located in Milton, just south of Hwy 401 off Highway 25. Lately and despite the time of the year, we have been lucky to experience very favourable weather and driving conditions for this annual event. On that evening, I don’t recall seeing any significant amount of snow on the roads or any road salt too for that matter. The big dump that we had earlier in November was all but gone. Once everyone had arrived however; there were no Zeds to be found in the parking lot!
As people entered the conference centre, they walked into quite an impressive room where dinner was to be served. The buffet table was set up in the middle of the room and it was surrounded by round tables, set for 8, to seat all the guests. After a search of po- tential locations by Vanessa, our Events/Social Media Director and other members of the Excom, we settled on the Teatro Conference and Event Centre. The member portion of the dinner cost that each one had to pay was a lot higher than last year’s event and that was a concern during the ticket selling campaign but at the end of the evening, I didn’t hear any grumbling about over charging or the dinner not being worth it.
The food was really delicious, consisting of a choice of different soups and salads, entrees included grilled chicken breast and Korean flank steak, potatoes, veggies and we finished up with a good choice of desserts, coffee and tea. We arranged for a cash bar to be set up and the drink prices were a bit on the expensive side but maybe that was a good thing. They were going to charge us for the bartender’s time unless we made the sales minimum of $500. Near the end of the evening, it came down to buying a bunch of drinks by the club to reach the required sales amount or waiting it out to see if that was necessary. We made it and saved that bartending fee. Overall, we had 51 members and guests at the dinner and it was good to see about eight of them out for the first time at this event.
Our club Prez Nigel had been very busy at a remote job site concerning work for the previous month and was not sure if he would be at the dinner. Fortunately, he was able to make it and after that great meal, he said a few words and proceeded to give out the door prizes. There would have been a lot more if one of our Excom had remembered to bring the leftovers from Z-Fest too! As usual at all our events, Jason was there with his camera to capture the evening for us with some great pics. Thank you too Jason. After the formal part of the evening was over, people had plenty of time and room to get up, walk among the tables and just socialize in the quiet atmosphere of the evening.
