Accepting the Challenge...Part 2

by Guest Blogger: Jaime Dodds

After the banquet, I have gotten asked many questions, but some of them have been frequent. I thought I would try to answer some of those here and give credit where credit is due!

1. “Who made the huge frame?” Wayne Clinton made the frame with the help of his son, Bryan. I gave him a picture of an idea someone had showed me, told him that I the basic concept I had in mind, and said that I trusted him and his creativity. Let me tell you! I was so shocked to see how it came out! So much better than I had imagined, and so big! That took so much work, and it still is not done! Tim Ade will be helping Wayne with the finishing touches once the discs are complete.
   
   
2. “Where did you get the discs on the napkins?” Tim Ade is responsible for the discs on the napkin ties. I gave him the discs, told him my idea, and he made a brand using his forge. He branded the AC3 heron onto approximately 400 of those discs. Kellie Ade then drilled holes into all of them for the ribbon or twine. The thought was that you could use them as an ornament of some kind. I am happy to see so many people around church wearing them as necklaces and to see them hanging from car mirrors. I am glad that they did not just get thrown away!
   
   
3. “How long did it take to do all of those mason jars?” I did about 200 of them, and that took about 10 hours total. The rest were divvied up amongst a few volunteers­­Sarah Taylor, Mikki Trenkamp, Jessica Sautner, and Dana Callahan are responsible for the rest, so you can ask them personally how long it took each of them.
   
   
4. “How much did all those mason jars cost?” Hmmm...about $10. No joke, I begged, stole, and borrowed (minus the stolen part.) I knew Mason jars are a big item as far as popularity and availability, so I was not going to spend church money on something that would be easy to borrow and returned without being ruined. I will say that every person that I borrowed jars from took them back as is, willing to clean and undecorated them. That itself was a giant help! Everything was done with hot glue so it wouldn’t ruin the jar and would be relatively easy to peel or scrape off!
   
   
5. “How long did it take to set up?” The tables were wrapped on Tuesday the 22nd in the AC3 lobby. That took a few hours with a team of four people­­ Sarah Ade, Twila Crain, my daughter Courtney, and myself. From here on out, assume that any of the paid staff and any of the people on stage or in the sound booth were there helping where needed. The church had access to Cedarcrest for four hours on Wednesday the 23rd to start setting up. We had a bunch of teen volunteers show up to help with that, in addition to a few other volunteers that helped with the laying of the tarps and hauling of the tables most notably Lee and Dea Braaten, Dave White, Wayne Clinton, Chad Dodds. The volunteers that took on big jobs and were at the school shortly after 7:00 the morning of the 27th to help with getting the last minute touches on the room and getting the food started are the ones I will focus on. Konni Craig not only help set up but was also responsible for every photo board that decorated the space. She did beautiful work on all of those. If you did not get to see them, they will be on display in the AC3 lobby in the near future. Brenda Froland was responsible for getting the logs cut for the cupcake display, and for not only cutting all of the holly and fir branches but also filling out the holly and fir in all of the jars that you saw with floating candles. She filled them with water and candles and finished decorating the tables. It took a few hours just for this task. Dea Braaten not only helped in a major way on the Wednesday set­up team, but she then showed up early Sunday to help set up the childcare area. Without Dea, we definitely would not have been able to pull this off! Amy Sullivan took care of all of the food and did an amazing job! I can not even tell you how much food we went through!

The banquet was an amazing event pulling 20 years of people and memories together in one room. I am happy that I was given the opportunity to coordinate the event, but I can, in no way, take most of the credit. God used me in a beautiful way to organize others to help with His work. When you see those volunteers that I mentioned above, please thank them for their hard work and contribution! If I forgot anyone, please forgive me and tell me that I forgot to mention your contribution! I promise that I will not forget after the 25th­anniversary banquet.