Benefit!

Held on the 15th of December as planned (Thank God)..

Due to the fact that we were largely last-minute, slightly disorganized (we tried, but it was our first benefit dinner as a home) we thus relied heavily on the Lord...and it was a large success..

Held at the Nicon Luxury hotel here in Abuja, with about 250 or so guests invited, some of our program's features included:

-Buffet dinner
-Power-point presentation/speech showcasing FCEIS projects conducted during the course of 2008

-Shows by our own talented performers, Abner/Anisa/Kids & our Guest performers, Simon & his daughters Jenny & Lisa..

-Guest speakers

-A raffle to finish off where we raffled off a good variety of quality prizes all donated by various companies & stores throughout Abuja..

My part was the emceeing, as well as hosting the raffle...but of course there were all the in-between bits (that I probably should've skipped out on..heh..) like greeting, picture-taking, filming, selling tickets, tools, etc. that kept me thoroughly running around the entire time ...
but all efforts worth it, as the turn out was good (between 120 & 150), people were happy with the program, a good witness went out & we were able to raise a hefty sum for next year's projects..

Thankfully Josh came up from Lagos & brought his SLR to take some good shots that my little Konica would never have managed...

Enjoy the following..in no particular order:

w/ some of the attendees picking up their "Christmas goodies" after the show..


Lisa, Josh & Simon (far right) with some of our friends..

Sam & Christina (who perform at hotels as a duo) stepped in to add a Christmas Lounge feel to the whole thing...

I got Ang to help me with the raffle, she did the "shake" of the ticket bag..

Then I'd call up one of the attendees to pull the winning number..that way there was no chance of rigging...


Then it got more complex...I was stumbling through my prize giving, calling people up stage, naming the gifts raffled as well as the sponsors, yaddyadda,...about half the prizes were actually gift vouchers from different stores, worth from about $50 to about $500 in the case of the higher ones...anyways, all my vouchers were all bunched up in my hand & I started stumbling over myself, slightly...so then Richard came up & started organizing the vouchers on the table next to me..
so by the end Ang would do the shake, then a guest would come up & draw the number, then the winner would come up & the person who drew the number would help Richard hand them their prize...thus I exceeeded my stumbling & in the end we had it down to a finery art..

Anisa w/ 2 of her beautiful daughters..

Josh & Mary sporting their wears..