Ottawa's Premier Wine Appreciation Organization - National Capital Sommelier Guild - From the President’s Desk

From the President’s Desk — May 2010

Sunday, 09 May 2010

Wow. Time has really flown by. If I had known what I would face when I took over as president two and a half years ago, I am not sure I would have done it. There were so many unexpected challenges that I am amazed that we made it through.

The first surprise was the sale of the Ottawa Wine and Food Show by Halina and Robert Player to Joan Culliton. Not only has the location temporarily moved to Landsdowne Park while the new Congress Centre is being constructed, but a new owner meant many changes and questions about how the relationship between the Show and the Guild would evolve. Fortunately, Joan proved to be a pleasure to work with and together we have worked through the difficulties of the new location. We are both looking forward to moving back to the Congress Centre in (hopefully) 2011.

Then came the sudden closing of the Chelsea Club. We had been spoiled over the years by the relationship we had with the Chelsea Club. Having to move our events and all our equipment to a new location was a challenge indeed. Thankfully, Norm McEvoy offered to let us store our glasses and other material at the Vendange Institute and to use their wine classroom for events on evenings when they were not conducting classes. Antonio Mauriello also came forward and offered the use of DiVino Wine Studio on Preston Street. DiVino Wine Studio has a ‘Bring your own bottle’ license which meant that we could run events there with wines from members’ private cellars. We now have the Algonquin College Restaurant International as a third venue for our events. Hopefully, by no longer have all our eggs in one basket, we won’t find ourselves in a similar situation in the future.

The move to new locations also posed new problems. We no longer enjoyed the luxury of piggy-backing on the Chelsea Club’s liquor license. We had to obtain Special Occasion Permits for all events held at the Vendange Institute. This increased the cost of running events and also meant that we had to confirm an event at least ten days in advance. The result was that we had to cancel events when there were not enough early registrants to make them economically viable. In addition, only wines with receipts proving that they had been purchased in Ontario could be served at these events.

In learning all about Special Occasion Permits, we accidentally discovered that the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) had posted a request for consultation on changes to the SOP regulations. With a lot of assistance from Rutha Astravas, we put together a very professional consultation paper explaining the needs of a wine appreciation organization such as the Guild in the hopes that an annual permit for our events would be possible. This paper has reached the highest levels of management at the AGCO but bureaucracy grinds on very slowly. My one regret is that (just like NASA putting a man on Mars), I may not live long enough to see the desired changes take place.

Our next challenge came about from tightened security measures put in place by the banks. For years, we had maintained a list of our members’ credit cards and automatically processed charges for events they attended against the cards on record. This worked well until we began experiencing a large number of transactions being rejected by the banks. Each of these required manual follow-up by our treasurer. The workload became so great that we quickly built up a backlog of outstanding receivables, so large that it threatened to put the Guild into insolvency. For several months, a task force of volunteers worked to contact each member who had outstanding accounts and arrange for them to be paid. In the end, we were able to collect most of the money. Some diligent work by Webmaster Dave Isaacs meant that we were able to replace our former system with an Internet-based event reservation and payment system so that the problem would not recur.

As if that were not enough, we were then faced with the 2008-09 recession. Membership numbers dropped and we had to cut back on the number of events that we ran. There were a few grumbles but most people seemed to accept this as a necessary evil. Thankfully, things started to pick up near the end of 2009 and the prospect for the rest of 2010 is optimistic.

All of this could not have been achieved without the support of a great team of directors and volunteers. Everyone worked together and pitched in to do their parts. They made my job as president much easier, and I could not have done it without them. I look back on this journey with some satisfaction and hope that you, our members, feel that the Guild has changed for the better.

As I now step down to pursue other interests, I do so with great confidence in the Board who will carry on the business of the Guild after me. Every Board member brings unique talents and fresh ideas that will stand the Guild in good stead for years to come. I plan to continue as a Guild member and look forward to attending some great events in the future.

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