COMMITTEES | Host 

The Host Committee members lend their names to the event and help build the mailing list. The Host Chair and Committee should be well-connected, well-liked, and influential. Their main objectives and endeavors include: sharing their rolodexes with the charity, forwarding charity and WW&S promotional e-mails for the event, and letting their friends and connections know that they are attending the function so that others are inspired to go.

For a Host Committee Event Timeline, click here.

For a Sample Host Committee Recruitment Letter, click here.

For a Host Committee Commitments Form, click here.

Here are some reflections from Rebecca Norman of Bradley Angle, Portland, Oregon, who was very successful in recruiting her host committee:

We didn't do anything all that special, really. We mostly relied on everyone's favorite form of encouragement--bribes!

At the beginning of the year, we held a "Queen of Sole party" where we invited everyone we wanted to be hosts to come and learn more about Wine Women and Shoes. We got folks to sign up to be queens at the party, and then continued to sign more folks up throughout the year. Each Queen promised to bring 5 guests to the event plus themselves (because we don't do a sit-down dinner so we can't sell tables).

We gave out prizes to the 3 Queens who brought the most people. We sent out emails each week letting folks know who was in the lead, and just pushed and pushed and pushed. Although our numbers aren't quite in yet, it looks like at least 85% of our guests came from our Queens--almost none of the guests had even received our organization-sent invitations. And we were sold out almost 2 weeks before the event.

At the event, we "crowned" the top three queens (just gave them cheap little crowns). And every Queen of Sole got a little pin at registration to wear with their nametag.

Hope that helps! Basically, we just pushed and bribed and pushed and bribed, and tried to make it fun along the way.