Frank Murray- you are amazing! This is fast becoming ‘THE’ Laura’s House event of the year and we are immensely grateful for the continued support from you and all the wineberserkers folks. The growing passion for our cause and the way many of you are sharing your knowledge to raise awareness about domestic violence makes my heart happy. You are some of the best ambassadors any non-profit could wish for and we appreciate that you choose to support us.
Wishing you all the happiest of holidays. See you in February.
Margaret and the Laura’s House team xx
As always, so looking forward to seeing your smiling face, Margaret. You and your team are a big part of the enjoyment of the day. Larry–my good friend, so glad you will be there once again. This time, we’ll make time to do a real catch-up!
Mike
Good afternoon to the Falltacular family. I’ll have a check update for you tomorrow, as my POC at Laura’s House has been off a few days.
With the check sending process now wrapping up, I need to move our focus to the Volunteer Schedule and Silent Auction.
If you can make an hour for the event to take one of the volunteer time blocks (dump spit buckets, open second bottles, monitor guests, etc), I would appreciate it. The schedule is in the File that you can link to via Dropbox back in the first post.
I also need to continue building out the Silent Auction items, keeping in mind that this aspect of the event contributes about 60% of what we collect for Laura’s House. What do you want to donate? One bottle, several, a case? We take all of it. Simply send me a note when you have decided and I will set the opening price and add your lot to the file. You don’t need to send me the wines now, and although it helps if I have them prior to Falltacular, we can accept them when you arrive the day of.
Thank you all for your continued support.
Hotel room booked. BTW, Frank, you can add a 10-CD Music set to my auction item (or have it as a separate, whatever you prefer). It’ll be 3 albums of my own music and 7 cover albums. All piano.
Mike
Happy holidays and Christmas Eve day to everyone in the Falltacular family. The event is blessed to enjoy so much support, a gift from all of you to Laura’s House that you have made possible now for 12 years. I want to address the wait list and permanent solution for it.
Currently the wait list has Sean Kennedy & Kathy Wiest Kennedy and Robin Miller, all decade supporters (10 years or more attendance). We also have long term supporters in Bruce Weimer and Eldon Gath waiting, along with Neil Barber and the Seibers.
We stand at 133 paid and taking these good people on and confirming them is going to take us to 141. The event is made stronger with their inclusion and I have made the decision to ensure their attendance–they are in. And to be fair to any checks already enroute, any checks arrive to Laura’s House on Tuesday, 12/26, we will welcome those, too.
As for going forward, the event is now closed, and I am eliminating the wait list and asking Laura’s House to stop honoring checks. Any remaining attendance will be filled by the winemakers who are always encouraged to attend–their attendance is never limited.
I trust everyone understands my decision and to anyone else who was considering attending, the event is now closed.
God bless all of you in this season, and for the fellowship, relationships and legacy we have all created together in support of Laura’s House and their work to ending domestic violence.
Thank you MG–gonna add this to the Kutch mag that you pledged–it all will be one item. 
Happy new year to everyone. I have successfully shaken off the Vilmart from new year’s eve and have kicked Falltacular now into the final gear. Here are some updates that I am sure some of you will want:
Friday Dinner–working on it. It’s a test of will and strategy to find the right partner, especially on a Friday night and with winter weather in play. I am meeting with some good folks this Friday night to discuss and am hopeful that will be the love connection I need to make the final announcement about where/details.
Winery Committments–in motion. We’ll now start seeing the winery donations comes in, which will support the house and the garage. I will update the Event file every few days so you know how it is taking shape.
Saturday After-Party–working on it. Shooting for food from Basanti (Indian) in San Juan Cap this year. I have become friends with the owner, a good man who is making his way and finding his dream. More to follow…
Friday golf–I am out this year. I want to use my time on Friday to ensure the Friday dinner and main event on Saturday is dialed in so if any of you want to play golf, take on the day without me. Suggest you use San Juan Hills. Remains in good shape, priced fairly.
Silent Auction–I need you all to step forward now and send me commitments. Sooner is better than later, so we can knock down the details while we have the gift of time.
We remain sold out for Saturday and I am turning people away from sending checks. We are fortunate to have success, I want to sensibly manage that and have a comfortable place for you all to enjoy the day.
Thank you!
I have updated the Event file for a # of winery donations and Friday payments that I have received. You can see all that if you click on the link below:
We are continuing to grow the event forward but what I still need help with is the following:
–Grillmaster station: if you want to help on the grill, I need it. You station at the BBQ for one hour and help cook the grill, move it off and either slice it up or give to the Super Dynamic Polish Duo who run the kitchen. 2PM, 3PM and 4PM are the only times I need it.
–Silent Auction. Either by being a bidder and owner of something in the garage, or as importantly, a donator. We earn about $15K in the garage but nothing gets earned unless there are auction items. Do you plan to donate? If so, please do that and help me now by identifying and passing along your auction committments to me via email or PM.
–Friday dinner payments. Keep sending if you are going to attend. Jill gave me a few checks y/day, and along with PayPal, we are about 60% collected. Please send the funds if you are attending.
Thanks again everyone.
Updates to the Event file. Additions to the Committed Wines, Silent Auction and Friday payments so I wanted you to see everything. We’re getting close to 100 auction lots and I would be thrilled to see us bust through that #.
As a side note. I am going to put the white/rose wine station outside this year. The station will be on the side of the house, in the little patio area. We’ll place the tubs around the ledge. This allows us to let my wine room become a sitting area, as we have new furniture in there. Should it rain (gulp–knock on wood), we will have to punt and put the station back inside as usual. As much as we need rain, we don’t need it on 2/17.
Thank you all for the ongoing support and enthusiasm for this event, which has transcended what it started as, becoming now a family of relationships, goodwill and support.
Can we start bidding on this now? 
2 WEEKS TO GO Update. Good morning to everyone in the Falltacular community. Just 2 weeks from today, we will have our 12th Falltacular. As we wind down to Falltac weekend, I ask all of you to please give me 5 mins and read the following:
VOLUNTEERS–the schedule is still not full. Please volunteer an hour to walk the house, dump buckets and just monitor behavior. You can find the schedule to the left in the Files section. It is one of the tabs in the Event file.
SILENT ACUTION–I will need to have LH make the auction sheets the week before so if you are going to commit items, we still need them. We could reach an aggregate starting bid amount of $10,000, which would be our first time ever busting through 10K, so if you are thinking of helping, please contact me now with the items so I can get them added to the file. (PS–last year we aggregated the start bids at $9,600, which was a new record, too). Deadline for auction items committment is 2/12, Monday.
TIPS FOR SUCCESS–I have added this short 1 page document to the FILES section to the left of this post. If you have not read it before or are new to the event, please read it.
FRIDAY DINNER–I am paying the restautrant this weekend. We are just shy of 80 paid so it oughta be a great night with lots of bottles and fun with Sol Agave.
Thank you Mark for the glasses this year again, which now includes Friday’s dinner. You do not need to bring stemware on Friday.
Any questions, please holler.
I think I volunteered but if I didn’t already plug me in somewhere. Preferably later in the day in the drying out hours.
Frank, please add Sal to the 1 PM white station.
Rock, I have you already listed at 3PM so you’re set.
Nancy, thanks a lot. I will put Sal into that slot.
We did it–we passed $10,000 of total commitments for silent auction starting bids. THANK YOU to everyone–our supporters, our wineries and everyone who has pledged. We may get close to $11,000 and so if you are committing items, I need them by name to me NLT EOD, Monday 2/12. Thank you all so much once again.
If you want to see the items that will be in the silent auction, you can click the link below and then locate the Event File and there is a tab that lists all the lots.
Checked the .xls for the first time (to be honest, first time today)…all I can say is…nice! After missing a year for family reasons, I am anxious for this one.
Hi everyone. Appreciate you all staying with me as I keep publishing the details for next weekend. The house is quiet here today, but one week from now it will be exciting with all of you here.
Have a # of changes now added to the Event File for those of you who want to open and review them. We have settled into an ideal amount of wine for the house, about 125 selections, which is the sweet spot for having space. And, 110 silent auction lots valued at just a few bucks under $11,000 for aggregate start bids. These two pieces represent the heart of Falltacular and we’re well positioned for a great day next weekend.
We’re 2 days away now from our 12th Falltacular. We will surpass $300,000 raised to date, which is an enormous accomplishment to be proud of. While we have many to thank, and I will do that with others separately, I wanted to begin with a THANK YOU to all the wineries that are supporting us this year. Below are their names, with some in the event for the first time, many with us for 5 years, 10 years, and a few with us for all 12 years. It is from their support, and all of their donated wine (this year we will have almost 350 bottles donated by these wineries), we absolutely cannot do this event, nor have raised the money we have without them. Thank them, suppport them, and with much love and respect from me, god bless all of them for that they do to make this event possible. It is through these wineries that the lives of women and children have been changed, saved and turned around for the better through their support of Falltacular and Laura’s House.
AUGUST WEST
BETWIXT
BIG BASIN
BOHEME
CABOT
CALLUNA
CAMPESINO CELLARS
CARLISLE
DARK HOLLOW
DUNSTAN
DV8 CELLARS
FOGLINE
FOURSIGHT
GRIMM’S BLUFF
HALCON
KUTCH
LADD CELLARS
LIQUID FARM
LORING WINE COMPANY
LUCIA
MATTHIASSION
MODEL FARM
PEAKE RANCH
RASI
RHYS
RIVERAIN
RIVERS-MARIE
SOJOURN
SWITCHBACK RIDGE
TABLAS CREEK
TERCERO
VELVET BEE
WILLIAM and MARY
T-minus 14hrs 42min to take off.
How are you doing with water supply, Frankie? Need any?