Jetrader - May/June 2008 - 25

ISTAT foundation WOW – what a night to remember! The Gala Dinner at the ISTAT 25th Annual Conference provided the usual platform for the ISTAT membership to be updated on the activities of your Foundation and to set out our goals for the future. This was about the only usual part of the event from a Foundation perspective. Prior to the Annual Conference, the fundraising committee had risen to the challenge to make the 25th anniversary a landmark year for the Foundation and to signiﬁcantly increase the Foundation’s funds available to assist with scholarships, grants and humanitarian causes. The hard work paid off, and we reached Orlando with $675,000 raised via Roundtable Memberships. We were exceptionally pleased to receive a number of $25,000 commitments from members alongside the “regular” $10,000 giving levels. The Foundation has been fortunate to obtain key support from The Batchelor Foundation, as well as Steven & Christine Udvar-Hazy (both Roundtable members), and this year should see the emergence of more ISTAT members willing to follow in their footsteps to ensure that the Foundation has a stable, regular donor pool for the coming years (let us try and make this year the norm not the exception, please). THANK YOU, ROUNDTABLE MEMBERS! It should also not go unnoticed that ISTAT this year made a very signiﬁcant $250,000 donation to the Foundation showing continued support for the aims and objectives that we as a Board of Trustees are pursuing. THANK YOU, ISTAT. Moving Forward The Annual Conference brought additional fundraising opportunities and again we had some new ideas mixed in with the more traditional. The ﬁrst new initiative came from new member Jet Trading & Leasing, LLC, (photo on pg. 11) whose name may be new to you but whose principals are well known in the industry. The idea was to host a poker tournament on the Saturday night catering for those golfers and other members who arrived early in Orlando. The tournament proved to be a hit for those able to attend (unfortunately, some were unable to make it due to the weather, which resulted in ﬂight chaos). Not only did the event prove enjoyable it was very successful in raising over $20,000 for the Foundation and we hope to twist Jet Trading & Leasing’s arm and make this an annual event. THANK YOU, STUART CAUFF & COLLEAGUES. The Foundation Golf Tournament was again oversubscribed but with help from Tom Hiniker and his crew, as well as the ISTAT HQ team, we managed to accommodate everyone. The Tournament met its ﬁrst challenge with the onset of daylight saving time, but that did not deter as we all headed out to the shotgun start in less than ideal light. The tournament raised nearly $18,000. Of course the money raised would be a great deal less if we were not able to obtain sponsorship for the event so THANK YOU, AAR & AVITAS. The silent auction, which ran during the course of the conference, beneﬁtted from donations from Pacmin, Pratt & Whitney, Northwest Airlines, FedEx and Embraer. We were fortunate to raise a total of $11,135 from this effort. Ultimately, we arrived at the Gala Dinner and the ﬁnal fundraising opportunity for the conference— ﬁnding ourselves within striking distance of the momentous goal of raising $1 million for 2008. We risked life and limb in arranging a live auction of four major items (only the super salesmanship of John Feren could produce a duplicate of one “unique” item and sell it twice so that four became ﬁve) during the dinner. Stephen Rimmer, Chairman ISTAT Foundation Jetrader 25

Jetrader - May/June 2008

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