Dawn Torrence Ireland

http://www.cdhsupport.org

Still in initial planning stages and we are trying to drum up sponsors but the dates are locked in!....

CHERUBS Conference will be held 1 day this year - on Friday, July 25th. We will find a hotel with a conference hall that will give us discounts. It will also have an airport shuttle. We will also find sitters for the kids in an ajoining room, plus entertainment for the kids (magician, clown, storyteller... working on that). Breakfast will be provided by the hotel and we're working on lunch and dinner. As soon as we have a hotel locked in, I will let you all know!

The Angel Ball will be a formal affair held at Duke Gardens. We have booked their reception hall for July 26th, 6:00 pm to midnight. They are giving us an incredible price, which sponsors will cover. The garden is just gorgeous, it is absolutely fairy tale beautiful. We can have the conference hall, which is great in case it rains. The conference hall comes with a beautiful lily pond right outside with a formal oriental type garden and we'd have to get a couple of tents too because the hall only holds 150 people and I'm planning to sell about 400 tickets. The English Gardens can be toured until dark (9:00 that time of year) and will make for awesome photos. I'm still begging to be able to have the ball there, we'll see what I can pull off. Wink We'll also have a silent auction with donations from artists (we have 2 pieces already). Durham / Raleigh / Chapel Hill has a huge artist community, so we should be able to pull that off. Attire will be black tie, with an emphasis on "white" and women will be encouraged to pull out their old wedding dresses and wear them again. We have several wedding service vendors who have already volunteer their time and services and we're hoping to really play up the whole wedding dress thing as that will sell more tickets. Of course all CHERUBS members are encouraged to attend! You can see Duke hospital from the Gardens so there is a top hospital here, plus tons of hotels and I'm 90% certain we can get a group of nurses to watch any cherubs for a few hours that night - I know a ton of nurses who work at Duke that I might be able to beg to volunteer for us. Plus, UNC is just up the road too in Chapel Hill. During the day, before the ball, the gardens is a wonderful place to take the kids to walk around, feed the ducks and picnic. Maybe we can have an informal member picnic that day, though I don't know how much time I'll have to attend because I'll be swamped with the Ball arrangements.

Golf Tournament on Sunday. Actually, the golf tournament will be in Wake Forest, which is north of Raleigh, about 40 minutes from Durham with the traffic. There will be a car given away to the first to hit a hole in one!!!!!!! One of the local dealerships is donating to a car if any player achieves this feat. There are a couple of golf pros who live in the area so I'm going to see if we can get them in the tournament. Craig is good friends with one of them but I don't think he'll be able to attend that weekend as it's in the middle of PGA tour season, but I will certainly beg him to try to come. Smile We will definitely have 1 former pro in attendance, but he was on the tour many years ago and only for a couple of years so his name isn't very well known. ***News flash - we now have one of the top 5 World's Longest Drive Champion's attending the Golf Tournament! We are looking for sponsors for each hole and volunteers to help with the tournament.

***** We quite possibly have a food sponsor and beverage sponsor. We also might have a great band who had a top 40 hit.

We have *tons* to do and could use any help possible!

As soon as we have more / know more, I will post it! Any suggestions welcomed!