Thank you to all of our Orange County Wine Society members who sent in their electronic votes for the Board of Directors this past month. The new electronic election was flawless, and I want to congratulate both Carolyn Christian and Fred Heinecke as they join me in our 2020-2021 Board term. I am honored to say that I have been elected as the President of the Board of Directors for the upcoming year. 

We have all been disappointed these past months, as our entire lives have been disrupted by the ongoing lockdown, brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The OCWS has been impacted, along with all other organizations, and our in-person activities have been severely impacted. We have not had a social event since March, and our two wine competitions, along with the entire OC Fair and our Wine Courtyard, were cancelled this year. 

Many thanks to our creative staff, who have formatted several “virtual” wine events using Zoom in lieu of in-person events. Appreciation and recognition also goes out to our  creative staff and presenters for pulling off both educational and entertaining seminars.

Every organization is a collection of assets, minus liabilities, which gives us our net worth. With the Orange County Wine Society, we don’t look at our net worth in just financial terms.

From our Board of Directors, our greatest asset is you, our members! Without you, we would devolve to a small core of people conducting boring activities, and we would quickly fall apart. The Board is working on minimizing our outflow of funds, but our biggest objective is to keep you all involved, and to keep you all signed up as active members. We hope you will all continue to work with us as we navigate our way through these challenging times.

In the near future, you can look forward to more entertaining virtual events, and I hope you all will sign-up and participate with a glass of wine in your hand and a smile on your face!

Needless to say, we all look forward to a time when we can resume our lives, and we can all meet again in person at our events.

 – Kevin Donnelly, President