The Third annual Taste for Aliso Niguel -- a night of food and wine tasting and fundraising — will take place on Saturday, October 3, 2009.

How is the event set up?

The Taste is a grass roots effort, put together parents of students at Aliso Niguel High School. The event is hosted by Parents For Aliso Niguel, a 501(c)3 non-profit, organized to help Aliso Niguel High School activities support groups and/or booster clubs, raise monies for school activities and facilities. PFAN is an umbrella group which handles securing the permits, coordinating with restaurants, renting equipment, purchasing necessary supplies, obtaining required insurance and helping coordinate booster clubs involvement. The majority of monies raised at each Taste will go back to the participating groups (via ticket sales and silent auction, etc.), but after expenses are paid, remaining monies will be used to help Aliso Niguel facilities.

Do you have to be a booster club to participate?

No, any parent activity support group can participate. As an example, Grad Night participated in the first Taste for Aliso Niguel and raised money for its activity.

How do activities support groups and/or Booster clubs raise money?

Support groups and Booster clubs can raise money in a number of ways. The simplest way to raise money is by just selling tickets to the event. For each $45 ticket a club sells, it keeps $25 of that $45. Sell 100 tickets and your group has raised $2500.

If individual clubs wish to do so, they can use the Taste venue to raise money via a silent auction, gear sales, raffles, etc. These decisions are up to each club. They can make it a very easy fund-raiser on themselves (raise money by eating good food and socializing) or they can take advantage of the large crowds at the Taste to make even more money via silent auction, raffle, gear sales, etc.

Clubs keep $25 of each ticket. Where does the other $20 go?

The remaining $20 of each ticket price is used to pay event expenses -- tables, linens, tenting, electrical, restaurant supplies, portapotties, generators, printing, permits, ice, insurance, etc.

What happens to the proceeds from the beverage sales?

Proceeds from beverage stations are kept separate, with revenues going to help pay for event expenses.

What happens to the money left over after all expenses are paid?

After all expenses are paid, additional monies will be withheld to use as the seed money for the next event -- site deposit, insurance, and permits, etc., and also to support school-wide project agreed upon by the PFAN Board and the school administration. A complete accounting of the event will be provided to each booster club.

What are the administrative costs that each club will pay on silent auction items? (i.e., if there are any fees deducted from the sale price of the items, what does this go towards?)

There are no administrative costs per se on the items, unless you use the provided credit card processing. Bank and c/c fees will be around 3-4% -- they vary from bank to bank and from customer to customer -- and we pay some experienced people to operate the processing machines. Studies show that use of credit cards at these events jumps revenues by almost 20%.

Regarding the $60/table cost for silent auction items, what does this go towards? Is this deducted from the amount to be paid to each club after the event is over?

The $60 cost per table covers the rental of the table, the linen and the cost of the silent auction tent, and the lighting inside the tent. etc.. The costs are a wash. Yes, it is deducted from the payout AFTER the event.

Do restaurants have to pay anything to participate?

Restaurants participate for free. The event venue provides them a great opportunity to provide samples of their fare. It is also a good chance for them to network with parent support groups (e.g., booster clubs) and make sure the parents know these restaurants are available for catering, etc. It is important for participating parent groups to remember that the restaurants are helping them raise money through this event -- and it's important for the booster clubs to pay them back with their business.

If a club member talks to a restaurant about participating, is there info that we can give the restaurants or a form for them to fill out?

We have a restaurant solicitation letter which you can download it and hand to potential restaurants. Our restaurant committee will confirm their participation via follow-up phone calls to the restaurateurs. We will give them a couple follow-up forms on which they tell us if they need plates, napkins, etc., and provide us with their insurance contact info. There is also a form that needs to be filled out and signed for the OC Health Department. Inevitably we will have one or two restaurants not show because of emergency staffing issues, but that's why you get more restaurants than you need. Click here for our restaurant solicitation fact sheet.

If clubs get someone to donate an item to the silent auction, do they have to complete or sign anything?

Except for setting up the venue -- the tent, and the lighting, etc -- the silent auction is run totally by each booster club. We will provide some sample donation solicitation letters but each club is responsible for finalizing its own letter for donations, using their own non-profit ID# and putting down their own contact information.

What kind of advertising/table top displays can clubs set up to show off their donors' items?

Again, clubs are totally responsible for how they run their silent auction What each club does with its table space is totally up to them. If they want to jam it with a hundred items, they can. If they want to utilize some fancy table top displays and give a lot of space to each item, they can. They are in charge of their own display and marketing of their items.

Do restaurants or silent auction donators receive any free tickets for participating?

The booster clubs cannot offer free tickets to anybody. At other venues, the clubs often buy tickets for their coaches, but that's their call. Likewise, if somebody offers a big ticket donation for their silent auction table -- like a trip to Cancun or whatever — a club can buy a Taste ticket for that donor, but that is that club's own decision, because that club is the one making all the profit from that donation. Besides, it's a fund-raiser and most people understand that.