Attendance at this year's Thompson Community Foundation fifth annual wine tasting evening dropped off dramatically from last year, down to about 120 tickets sold compared to about 180 last year.
That matches a low set in 2007. The first two events in 2005 and 2006 years had turnouts of about 160 people each raising about $3,500 each. The 2007 event netted only about $3,000, while between $5,000 and $6,000 was raised last year. This year's amount should be close to that even with the decreased attendance because ticket prices went from $35 in 2008 to $50 a piece this year.
The Manitoba Liquor Control Commission sponsored event is biggest annual fundraiser to defray the cost of operating expenses for the Thompson Community Foundation.
The foundation gave out more than $60,000 in grants last year and had annual operating expenses of about $28,000.
The 12-member board currently has five vacancies. Board members can sit for up to six consecutive years before having to step aside. Sherrie Kreuger is the veteran president of the foundation's board of directors and is joined on the board by Brad Ritchie, a financial advisor, Norma Leahy, accountant Bob Wall, assistant Crown attorney Richard Smith, Liz Sousa, a community development officer with North Central Community Futures Development Corporation, and Colin Bonnycastle, director of the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Social Work in Thompson.
Among the winery representatives on hand this year were staff from Diageo Canada, Aqua Vitae, All-Canada Marketing & Promotions, Free House Wine & Spirits, BKG Distributors, Wellington Estate, Amphora Imports, Corby Distilleries and Philip Dandurand.
Wines ranged from the Argentinan red Trapiche Estate Malbec to Australian red Rutini Trumpeter Reserve to Antinori Casasole, an Italian white, vanilla oak-casked, with peach, melon and pineapple bouquet, renowned as an accompaniment to shellfish.
The Thompson Community Foundation was formed in 1995. With the establishment of the Moffat Family Fund in Winnipeg in December 2001 and the decision the following year to make its grant money more widely available elsewhere in Manitoba, the local foundation benefited from that and its resources have grown substantially to more than $500,000.
The Moffat family made their fortune in the cable television business.
In December 2000, Shaw Communications Inc. took over Moffat Communications in a $1.2 billion cash and stock bid. Moffat Communications at the time had 333,000 cable and Internet customers in Manitoba and Alberta through Videon Cable Systems, including here in Thompson. It also had 60,000 cable customers in Texas and Florida through Kingwood Cablevision, FSN Cablevision, and Palm Coast Cablevision, as well as owning Winnipeg CTV affiliate CKY-TV and the WTN specialty channel, based in Winnipeg.
