Win $20,000 in Gold & Support The Sooke Chinook Sea Pen Project

profisher

Well-Known Member
SVIAC has just applied for a new gaming license in hopes of running a new, fun and potentially profitable raffle for both the winners and for the society. For SVIAC this is a fund raiser which if successful will almost completely cover the annual costs associated with transferring over 500,000 Nitinat Chinook smolts to the Sooke Harbour and releasing them for the benefit of our local resident killer whales. The annual costs of this effort have been about $75,000.00 each year. As the number of Chinook we receive, clip/tag and release increase, so will our costs. Our past sources of funding have almost dried up at no fault of the contributors or the society, we are all victims of the 2020 pandemic and a huge downturn in tourism, economic activity and revenues. This project is to important to risk loosing, so we have to find other ways to quickly replace our funding requirements.
Our board decided to offer a unique raffle with prizes that will appeal to a broader demographic of the public rather than going for an angler specific line up of prizes. The raffle will be named "Orca Gold " and the grand winner will pocket a $20,000.00 bar of gold!!! The runner up will win $1,000.00 in silver coins. Ten ticket buyers will be drawn and will get their ticket price returned. We will also offer a $1,000.00 cash early bird prize for those who buy their ticket(s) early. We will print 2000 tickets (only) so the odds will be excellent. Tickets will be sold at $50.00 per ticket. That means a sold out raffle will generate $100,000.00. We will give away $22,500.00 total in prizes and after some marketing costs we should see $75,000.00 left to cover the annual net pen costs. So by supporting this one raffle and selling out the tickets we will meet our financial obligations for 2021 and keep this important project in the water and bolstering the Sooke River Chinook output.
We hope to have approval from the gaming branch and have tickets on sale by November 15th, that is the plan. Just in time for Christmas. The early bird draw will take place on December 31st at noon and all ticket holders by that date will be eligible. The final draws will be at noon on May 15th, 2021 and coincidences with when all our Chinook smolts are released and when the bills start to come in and become due.
Tickets will be offered representing plots of land with mineral rights. There will be 10 land plots represented by tickets starting with letters from A to J. Each plot will have 200 parcels of land available to buy. So tickets will be A - 1 through 200, B - 1 through 200..... etc etc up to the letter J for a total of 2000. When we do the final draw we will put 10 stubs of paper in a bucket...1 for each letter A through J. Three stubs will be drawn and those plots will be deemed to have the best potential for riches after an assay of all the plots. Lets say D, G and J get drawn. All the tickets starting with those letters will go into the final draw. That will be 600 tickets if sold out. We will then draw the 1st and 2nd place winners from those tickets and those land parcels held the riches. The 10 ticket refund winners will be drawn from all the tickets sold, with exception of the 1st and 2nd place winners.
You will be able to ask for specific tickets if you have a hunch as to which parcel of land will pay out on draw day!! I'm putting this up now because we have up to a 10 week wait for the gaming branches approval and I want to hit the start on November 15th running, with a flurry of sales. Anyone wishing to help us out by selling tickets to family, friend or co-workers, we will make them available to those individuals. We will also seek out retail outlets as well. Thanks for taking the time to read this....I'll end it here before it becomes a novel. I'll post more details as they become available.
 
What a greet idea. I love the Orca gold marketing. I’ll be buying these for Christmas presents for sure!
 
I'm in for two tickets, just tell me when their avaliable
 
Christoph ....its really easy...you buy a ticket and hope to win!!! lol
 
Hide it and hang onto it...it will only go up in value over time.
 
Well tbis was a kick in the nuts...after a 2 hour conference call to put together a response from the gaming branch to their request for more details about the society and what it does...I got word today from the gaming branch tbat we have been turned down for a Class A gaming license. They are saying as we are a lobby group that makes us ineligble. So now back to square one on how we are going to continue to finance the net pen.
 
use a different name? Sooke Net Pen Society?
 
Imo something like that does not just randomly happen. Sad to see and hear that. May I ask did they give any examples of why they have decided to label your organization with that?

I know SFI has to walk that tight rope as once you get labeled as a lobbying group it prevents you from applying to a lot of programs and funding from the government.
 
Yup, SVIAC will need to find out how other similar organizations deal with this issue/limitation. So while frustrating, there should be some way to proceed - just need to keep trying!
 
In all our correspondence we were careful to use the word advocacy and not lobby. Didn’t seem to matter.
 
Don't be discouraged, essentially they are right, you ARE a lobby group. Just funnel it through the Juan de Fuca Salmon Restoration Society.
 
We have two options right now...retract our application or use another society that meets the criteria and they would receive the funds....but the kicker is under that scenario we could only get a class b licence which is the same as the others we did for prizes left over from the JDF Derby that was canceled a couple years ago. Allows you to earn no more than $20,000....so that won't work for this idea and I'm trying to find a way to fund the entire project 100% without relying on any other funding sources which aren't there right now with Covid.
 
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