December 2016

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

LUNCHES ARE WORTH IT!!!

We have had a few questions lately about the cost of our SOPC lunches and very often we hear that you could have a better lunch at a restaurant with friends for less money. We would like to explain some reasons for the cost as well as the valuable things that are part of our SOPC lunches.

To begin with, we think calling them lunches is a little deceiving. These are private, catered events and we really should rename them! Our monthly SOPC meetings are more like weddings or family reunions because they have much more in common with those events than a simple lunch with a few friends.  Let’s all start to think of our monthly luncheons as “Extravaganzas”!

Of the $26.00 you pay when you register on line, $25.00 goes towards the food and all the costs charged by the venue and one dollar goes to the PayPal service. It is your $30.00 a year membership fee that is used to subsidize each lunch (each group hosting receives up to $500.00 to help pay for center pieces, raffle prizes, etc.) as well as the other expenses incurred by a large club like ours. These expenses include things like name tags, web domain, a photobook farewell gift for members of the Operation Committee etc. So, you and your membership fees are very important to keeping our club running from year to year as well as having successful monthly luncheons.

As for our “luncheons”, it is almost impossible to compare a restaurant setting for a few friends with a private facility for 150 or more ladies to have lunch at the same time. The cost of our catered lunch includes the entire venue which is dedicated to our lunch. A meeting with staff is held before the date to choose the menu, table linens, dishes, placement of tables, etc. The organizers can and do arrive as early as 0800hrs to set up, tables are set up by the staff where ever we want them to be placed, we can run any type of program we decide (Spanish dancers, fashion shows, short films, presentations of pins and gifts, etc.), we can sometimes bring our own desserts, and we can run any number of charitable collections and host vendors. A parking director/attendant is provided and there is room for all of our cars. We are also free to decorate the tables and room as we see fit and we can choose the colors of the tablecloths and napkins to help with our themes for the lunch. If we want a photo booth, we can do that, too. Most of this would not be possible in a restaurant and so we know from our research and experience that we are getting a good deal.

We hope that you will help us to make our monthly meetings and club even better. We need people to join together and volunteer to host lunches. Come and talk to us about your idea. We will help you find a team if you don’t have one and your budget for the lunch is $500.00. We want to partner with our members to make the lunches a fun experience that grows our SOPC club and NATO community.

We look forward to seeing you at the next “Extravaganza”!!