Attendance and consequently dollars raised were both up at this year’s Tip ‘n’ Taste.
People’s insatiable desire for craft beer continues to breath new life into the longstanding Langley Rotary Club event, said this year’s organizer Leon Jensen.
“The Tip ‘n Taste concept has been, and continues to be, a great way to get 500 people together to help support a local charity! Not bad for 17 years,” he told the Langley Advance.
“The Tip’n Taste is really all about the team that puts out a tremendous effort in knitting it together,” Jensen said, especially throwing credit to David Truman and Jeff Morfitt, two men who have been the main forces behind the event for years. He also credited Calla Krause, Bill Lindahl, Wayne Crossen, Rodney Blackwell, and Linda Mross for playing an instrumental role in spearhead this effort through the years.
“Our best estimate for the event at this time is that the net proceeds are up by 16 per cent over last year, with attendance up 10 per cent to a total of 492,” he revealed the day after the event.
Jensen noted that a donation to the Nikomekl Enhancement Society will be in the neighbourhood of $10,000, with an additional $1,500 going to each of the three participating Langley Rotary Clubs to support their own local initiatives.
The Nicomekl Enhancement Society was picked due to a very detailed submission that was provided to the Rotarians, Jensen explained.
“Their water system needs to be upgraded and is critical for their operation. Without a new system, we’re looking at a situation that jeopardizes 500,000 fish being released into local waterways every year,” he said. “It would be fantastic if there were a couple of large corporations out there that would be willing to match the Tip ‘n Taste effort. That would be an awesome way to finish off this year’s event.”
Jensen, new to the leader’s role for this event and still a relative newbie to Rotary, said he’s “willing to take the task on again” for another year.
“I would like to see if we can increase the amount of participating craft breweries at our event next year, so that we can provide opportunities to taste some of the other fine brews from the local area and B.C.,” he said.
“We’re also going to go through a few brainstorming sessions to come up with some additional twists to the format… Still have to discover what those twists might be,” Jensen added.
For now, though, he sent out a “huge thanks to the local community for supporting our event and look forward to an even bigger and better event next year.”
The efforts of all Langley Rotarians are now being focused on the next big event, the new Ribfest in August.
• Video to come
