All's Fair in Love and Fundraising, Part 2

 

The eight case “sample” we bought at Grant Burge didn’t last long.  John immediately laid claim to a number of reds (I made him buy them from me), bragging that he was spending evenings with “Elena” (the name of the red wine).  In the first week I received orders for more than I had in my possession.  I also needed to supply Friday night “tastings”, having offered a “try before you buy” option.

I sent around emails offering tastings every Friday night in August and promising that photos of Michelle and I looking suitably disgusting on the build site would be forthcoming.  All the emails had a Bob the Builder theme and urged people to drink for a cause (like you have to urge Aussies to drink).  The first email announcement had this picture attached.

It seemed appropriate.

After having obtained the requisite approvals, I sent out an email to the 400 plus employees at my workplace advertising the wine sales.  

Wine and lawyers go together like Torville and Dean [a famous ice-skating duo], a pie and sauce [meat pie with ketchup for the non-Aussies], Wimbledon and rain … well, you get the picture.  Buy into the stereotype and buy wine for a good cause!

I was sold out of my stock in the first hour.  People forwarded it to their partners, who forwarded it around their workplaces and the orders flowed in.  Clearly, I was going to have to go back to the Barossa soon for more wine.

Things came to a head last week when Heather from Grant Burge rang me to say that they were down to the last 15 dozen of the Elena.  “I’ll be there on Saturday,” I replied.

Although wine fundraisers are great in the end, you do have to carry quite a lot on your credit cards until the payments come in.  In preparation, John and I pooled resources to make sure that one of our credit cards could take the whole hefty charge of nearly $2000 worth of wine.  Credit arranged, off we went to the Barossa again.  The plan was that we would have lunch beforehand, then drive up to the Barossa.  There, we would pick up the wine, drive to my office, and unload the wine there.  After that, we would have time to go to an open house at 5:15.  John had done the photos of the house and it had a Moroccan style that he thought I would like to see.

The first wrinkle in the plan was Missy Kim, our Hyundai Getz.  She is a little car and ultimately, she would be loaded down with 26 cases of wine and two adults.  We weren’t sure that we would all fit or that she would be happy driving with all that on board.  Our backup plan was to go back to Grant Burge the next day if we had to.

We arrived at the winery and were on schedule, but the winery had a tour bus and the nice cellar door folk were run off their feet.  Since we had time, we ordered coffee and cake and waited for the tour bus crowd to leave.  Once they did, Heather came over, comp’d us the cake and coffee and then, went over the order with me. 

I gave her my credit card to pay.  Unfortunately, she initially put through the wrong sale amount and then cancelled the sale by telling the EFTPOS machine that the signature was unverified.  For those of you who have had dealings with American Express, you will understand the significance of this being A NEW CARD.  AmEx is great in a lot of ways, including their security.  But once you have a security flag on your card, it’s not likely to come off anytime soon.  Security flags are common for new cards and cards that haven’t been used for a long time, or indeed any obvious change in your spending patterns on the card.  So a new card coupled with an “unverified signature” had AmEx firing on all cylinders.  Needless to say, when Heather tried to put the correct amount through, we got the nasty “Da-naa” sound, which I’m certain was followed by a “but thanks for playing”. 

Heather rang the EFTPOS people first.  They suggested we contact my bank.  While I stayed on the line through a succession of holds and transfers with my bank, Heather was helping John load up Missy Kim.  John lays claim to his calibrated eye, a result of 14 years in the US military perhaps.  He was certain that all that wine could fit in our little Getz.  Of course, he was right (I hate that). 

I finally got onto someone who told me that Grant Burge needed to send them a fax on Grant Burge letterhead.  The fax needed to provide my account and purchase details and a request that the funds be released, with a description of what happened.  It was to be addressed to “Team Leader”. 

By now it was about 4:30 and Morocco was slipping away.  Letterhead was sourced and the fax written.  When Heather tried to send it, she learned that their fax machine was playing up. 

Finally, the fax machine began to cooperate and the fax was sent.  We waited 5 minutes, then tried our luck with the EFTPOS machine. “Da-naa”.  We waited 10 more minutes.  Morocco was gone and Grant Burge was closing.  Poor Heather looked like she needed a martini.  We tried again.  “Da-naa”.  I rang my bank and was told “Well, the fax machine is on this floor so someone must have it.  I’ll try to find it.” I stayed on the line.  The minutes ticked past.  Heather and I chatted.  She gave me two splits of their very nice champagne to drink with Michelle in Cambodia.

Finally, the bank chick came back on the line.  “Ok, your funds are release,” she said. 

“If you don’t mind, I might ask you to hold the line until this transaction goes through,” I replied.  Both Heather and I let out simultaneous whoo-hoos of victory when the EFTPOS machine made the happy “I like you again” noise. 

The sale finalised, John and Missy Kim and I headed for home with our 26 cases of wine.  Of course, the skies opened and drenched us but we no longer cared.  We had the wine.

UPDATE - ALL of the wine is now spoken for and my credit card STILL has security flag issues *sigh*  All’s fair in love and fundraising….