Yeah, it was very general last year.

And so those funds as such um aren't limited necessarily to a specific area.

And then our chocolate and wine uh annual fundraiser run in uh just over 20,000.

Um and while that was a little bit lower than some of our cost years, we did just go through kind of an analysis of the fundraiser as a whole and kind of identified some areas in which we can improve for this next year, and so we're really excited about that um going forward and thank you to Diane for helping us with that as well.

We already have a committee working on that.

So we did um we had kind of an ad hoc committee do kind of a retrospective on the last like three or four years.

Uh-huh.

Almost like since the Y basically, yeah.

And um then we have our committee reconvene in the next the committee that will put on the event will reconvene in the next month to six weeks um to start going on that.

So the screen chair to ask you what changes you have in mind.

Um not entirely.

I mean, we did I think we're gonna keep the event is still gonna be at the end of February.

We thought about changing it, but given kind of all that goes on in the county in the spring, um, and we confirmed that we're not gonna have a conflict with uh I think it was um ranchest yellow had a similar kind of culinary event that weekend, and we know there's no conflict um for next year.

And um we're really going to focus on the chocolate and wine aspect to really make sure that that comes through in the event.

Um and then we also talked about um you know focusing on sponsorships in our acquisitions and and how to better streamline that going forward.

So I think we'll have some um yeah, some an exciting year.

But those are kind of the preliminary things that we identified.

So stay in February.

It is, yes.

Yeah, yes.

The tie-in is nice with February, so I think that Valentine's Day.

So I mean historically that's why it began in February.

Yeah.

But I haven't felt a Valentine's Day.

I I think maybe because it's gotten pushed back further away is within the month.

I mean so you don't see the red and white all over the place.

Uh you know, for that.

So I'm wondering if that's even necessary.

February is the best month for conflict avoidance.

I always say that's that's one thing that you need to take in account no matter what month.

But I wonder if moving it away from Valentine's Day to something else that might be meaningful.

Is there a I don't know.

That's the six month anniversary of one of my surgeries.

Oh yeah.

But I was just thinking is there a library month or international library week or something like that nearby.

It's in April or something.

We we thought about April was kind of the next logical place to think to look to, but given just everything that starts to happen in April, it events really uh start to ramp up between the I wasn't suggesting the month.

I was just thinking if there was a good time.

There was a theme that we could relate to other than Valentine's Day, because it's past Valentine's Day.

A lot of people are going Valentine's Day is over.

Um so I don't know.

Yeah, is the weekend that it's held a long holiday weekend?

No, the twenty it's the 27th, so I think we're we're good on that.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's gonna be February 27th, which is probably triple check, but I I think it was in the calendar from last morning, perhaps they might be so other highlights from this past year.

We did we had both a fall solicitation and spring appeal letters that went out.

Um, and I think we're still getting the numbers on the spring or most recent appeal.

So um we'll follow up with the success of that.

Um and then lastly, we've been sorry.

Lastly, um Ali has really our funder, Ali uh Ladia, who's been helping us as our fundraising consultant has been working on our um uh kind of I guess reconciling our data um for our donors and donor of perfect, which is going to be a huge help for us going forward as we um have other future campaigns as well.

So that was that's um brief summary of our fundraising last year, and then um for this upcoming year um our goal it we these were goals that the uh board kind of put together and based on last year's numbers, and so um I think primarily we want to focus on two author talks that have been very popular.

Our board really enjoys putting this together, and so um we're hoping to have two of those, but to make them more bigger events that will um bring in more of the fundraising component to them.

That's ambitious.

It's good to have goals.

Good, yeah, it is that Joshi does have her book coming out, and Caroline Chambers has another cookbook coming out, and both of those um authors have been very generous with their time, and they've also we've had success with both of them as being very popular for our me, not saying that they not doing the work for the committee saying that those are necessarily the the author talks, but just knowing that the those two in particular have upcoming book releases.

Um I think might have contributed to that um goal setting a little bit.

Um and then fundraising goal, ambitious hitting a hundred thousand this year.

Um and that we're gonna be working on that application is due at the end of the month.

Um, I know Brian has suggested that teen area be a focus this year, and I think that I just did thinking about it.

I know the teen group has done a lot with the summer reading program, and they've been more active on social media, and I think it's an engaged group, so I um I don't know if Brian's gonna share more about what that might look like, but we uh yeah, we we talked to their meeting just kind of like about the goals, and that was the one that the board also was um interested in moving forward with this port that's idea.