Night Meeting Minutes
January 21, 2026
In Attendance: Sandee Macht, Will Gruber, Anita Martin, Ken Hein, Kenny Eimers, Eric Dvorachek
Sponsorship Brochure:
- Reviewed the levels and the perks. Numerous changes were discussed. It was decided to remove swag in the bag until sponsorship level (not for booster levels).
- Additional ideas were reviewed. The brochure continues to evolve based on suggestions
- Ken talked about the Rotary Festival of Lights run they attended last December with the RYE students.. GREAT event! How do they do sponsors? Set level naming convention since day 1. Never modified the level but have changed the price. A Diamond level sponsor is $15K and the swag in the bag for the top level was a neck gaitor with the name of the diamond level sponsor on it. Timed runs. Had sponsors hand out some of the prizes at the end. But they had 1,000 runners and a timed race. They had 6 different shirts. Hoodies etc. Should we have multiple Tshirts? Different sponsors. An additional discriminator: If a multi year sponsor-you received premo positioning on the tshirt. All top level sponsors have representation at the start/end.
- Volunteers: Cheer squad at half way point. Semi circle almost at the end. One suggestion for a Tshirt logo: “Read about it! I support the Lake Mills Library”
- Check if we can do a ticker on the race website that shows our supporters
- Advertise on meetup.com Review brochure. First sponsors who sign up get the spaces. Need to plan for having more than one top level sponsor.
- Only spot that there was information about sponsor info was at the beginning/end at the La Crosse event. Not on the course. Reason: The runners will not see the information on the run-they are too busy running. Prominence at the beginning/end. Arch with all of them.
Additional Thoughts:
Give out bookmarks at the Town and Country with a save the date and the library expansion at Town and Country Days. Set information out at Market Days on Wednesday.
Hook to keep folks there after: run in ugly sweaters. In La Crosse, after they gave away all of the prizes they gave out the prizes for the ugliest sweater. Is there a hook for the run? Goal this year: Solidify the plan this year and build next year.
Potentially gather at the library before the run. Start there? Have library folks talk. Have top sponsors talk?
Ken recommended the $2,500 level as the top level for us based on the size of the run.
There were a ton of ideas and the goal is to get the brochure buttoned up in February.
Meeting was adjourned at 7:04PM. Next meeting is Wednesday, February 4th at Tyranena Brewery on Owen St.
