Category: Courtyard

Our biggest fundraiser of the year will be upon us sooner than we can imagine, and the foundation for this year’s success has now been in the works for several months. As most of you already know, it takes several hundred OCWS volunteers to run The Courtyard each year. For your planning purposes, please keep in mind the following:

• This year’s OC Fair runs from July 12 through August 11
• Invitations to those of you being invited to manager, cashier or steward will be emailed by the end of January
• Sign-ups for managers will begin on April 1
• Sign-ups for cashiers and stewards will begin on April 15
• Sign-ups for servers will begin on May 1

One very exciting and much needed addition this year will be new, integrated cash registers/credit card machines. Anyone invited to manage or cashier will be required to be trained on the new machines sometime in February or March in order to be assigned requested shifts. Dates for these sessions will be provided in your invitation. It is of the utmost importance that everyone is properly trained this year.

We will also be having, as in the past few years, training sessions for stewards and servers sometime in June and early July and will gladly train anyone else at that time interested in learning the new registers with the intention of possibly cashiering. These dates will be posted at a later time.

We look forward to your participation and all the fun and laughter that go along with working The Courtyard during Fair time. Thank you.

– Fran Gitsham & Brian McDonald, Courtyard Chairs

We are looking to expand the number of people involved in running the Courtyard for 2019. If you are interested in becoming involved
in scheduling, training, etc., please contact Brian McDonald at Brian@ocws.org or Fran Gitsham at Fran@ocws.org.

– Fran Gitsham and Brian McDonald,
Event Chairs

This Competition gives recognition to outstanding label and bottle designs for California wines entered in the Commercial Wine Competition each year, in support of winery interests in creating eye appeal, easy recognition, and promotional value for their wines. The emphasis here is on the artistic and expressive visual presentation of the wines on initial contact by the wine enthusiast at retail or their home, in addition to the intrinsic value of each wine tasted and savored when enjoyed.

Wineries entering their wines for the Commercial Wine Competition are encouraged to submit four labels for each entry. The Commercial Label Committee, comprised of OCWS members with backgrounds in visual and graphic arts, assigns each label to one of 11 categories, including Best Use of Color, Contemporary Design, Figurative, Flora, Special Effects, Thematic Series, and others. Of the grouping in each category, the Committee selects ten highest valued labels to present for judging by OCWS membership. The bottles are identified upon receipt as exceptionally designed, including two-toned glass, wax dripping over cork, glow in the dark graphics, uniquely shaped, and other fascinating features.

OCWS members and guests attending and participating in the 2018 Commercial Wine Competition the first weekend of June this year reviewed the selected labels and voted on the top three in each category, which by their vote counts were then awarded First, Second and Third Place in each category. The winery is then acknowledged with an Award Letter and a Gold, Silver or Bronze Medal for their winning labels (an actual thick, metallic medal about 2.5” in diameter on a dark blue striped ribbon).

All label winners are displayed on two large, black boards on the eastern display wall at The Courtyard for the duration of the Fair for all attendees to view and enjoy. We hope you each will appreciate these exceptional winery achievements in label creativity by visiting the Label Award displays at The Courtyard!

If you don’t get a chance to view the Label Award displays while visiting The Courtyard, the Label Award winners can be located on the ocws.org website under the Commercial Wine Competition section, in the link identified as 2018 Award Book.

– Kathryn Hansen

Image is of Best of Show Label Winner Kelsey See Canyon Vineyards.

The 2017 OC Fair, although now just a memory, is still very fresh in the minds and hearts of the 316 OCWS volunteers whose dedication and enthusiasm made this year’s Courtyard the most successful in OCWS history! With over 1,440 shifts worked at The Courtyard during the Fair, and thousands of hours spent behind the scenes before and after, this year found us smashing records from previous years. The Courtyard grossed the largest income in OCWS history.

The Orange County Fair & Event Center allowed us to partner with them to run both the Commercial and Home Wine Competitions and also gave us the opportunity to run The Courtyard. Income generated from The Courtyard has paid for both competitions and will cover OCWS’ overhead for the following year. Generous donations made by the general public contributed significantly to our Scholarship Fund.

Aside from The Courtyard requiring a lot of hard work and dedication, there’s always the fun factor. Here are some fun facts from this year:

• Varietal Wines Sold: 17,536 glasses
• Red & White Cellar Specials Sold: 9,302 glasses
• Champagne Splits Sold: 4,439 bottles
• Award Tastes Sold: 13,179
• GoVino Glasses Sold: 3,870
• The Express Bar: 5,977 transactions
• Top 4 pm to 9 pm shift transactions: Saturday, July 15, 1066 transactions within 5 hours, or 213 transaction per hour, or 4 per minute
• Largest credit card shift transactions: 4 pm to 8 pm, Saturday, August 12, 139 transactions within 4 hours, or 1 every 2 minutes
• Largest credit card shift: 4 pm to 8 pm, Wednesday, August 9, totaling $2,366
• Most shift transactions: 4 pm to 8 pm, Saturday, August 12, 447 transactions, or 1 every 31 seconds
• Largest Scholarship Donation Day: Saturday, July 15, $1,320 in donations

The success of The Courtyard is due in no small part to all OCWS volunteers who manned or maintained The Courtyard in any number of capacities, or by simply lending moral support. It took each and every one of our volunteers to make The Courtyard a success and provide the OCWS with a fabulous financial foundation going into the next year.

Thank you to each and every one of our volunteers!

– Fran Gitsham, Brian McDonald & Lloyd Corbett
The Courtyard Co-Chairs