The Arcola chapter of the Optimist Club shared the wealth from their wildly successful snowmobile rally on Thursday, March 29.
The rally, which made a record profit for the group despite the lack of snow leading the outdoor portion of the event to be cancelled, raised more than $48,000 by the final count.
Holding a dinner at the Optimists/Legion Hall in Arcola on March 29, the Optimists welcomed members, the general public, and representatives of five area organizations who were to receive some windfall from the rally.
After a quick welcome to members and guests, the dinner was served, following which Arcola Optimists president Al Burton introduced the chair for the rally committee for 2012, Craig Erick, and gave him the floor.
Calling each of the representatives forward one at a time, the cheques were presented by Erick.
Candice Dionne, who was representing the Arcola Daycare, received a cheque in the amount of $6,500.
Richard Weber, on behalf of the Arcola Prairie Place Complex, accepted a cheque in the amount of $3,240.
On behalf of the Wildlife Federation, Colleen Weinberger accepted a cheque for $2,240.
Accepting a cheque in the amount of $3,860 was Terry-Lee Lees, who was representing the Arcola Curling Club.
Finally, Mavis James accepted the donation of $587.50 for the area Food Bank.
"We are really happy with the way things turned out, despite no snow," Erick said following the cheque presentations. "Chairing was easy, because we have a bunch of people who just know what they're supposed to do, and they do it."
"I'm sure they made me look a lot better as chair then I would have alone."
Following the cheque presentations, the Optimists received a brief financial report from their treasurer, Richard Weber.
"On final count, we took in $48,200 for the year," Birch explained. "We've distributed about $15,000 with the cheques we handed out tonight, and that leaves us with $33,000 or so for projects."
While work on a new playground for the community has been the main project that Optimists have directed fundraising towards, the membership was presented with a different, pressing project at the meeting.
"This year, the movie theatre has brought in about $5,000 in revenue for the club," Weber. "The attendance has gone up by 25 people per week."
Weber continued to explain that the theatre would be facing technical challenges in the near future however, as one of the largest distributors of movies was going to stop making film copies of movies available, moving completely to digital copies.
"We will need to get a new projector to handle the digital films," Weber said. "The new projector would be between $65,000 and $70,000, plus another $2,000 to upgrade the sound system."
Weber also added that electrical service in the projection booth would need to be upgraded to 220 volt.
"We will still work toward the playground," Weber concluded, "But we need to get the projectors as soon as possible if we want to continue showing films at the theatre."
Therefore it was announced that a replacement projector would now be the major project focus for the Arcola Optimists.
