I have an awesome sister in law who takes care of booking those and just write her a check for it and pay for the rooms in cash upon checkout CASH IS KING!

Agreed cash is King. For personal hotel stays, Ill pay in cash for single nights. But I have to give a credit/debit card for "incidentals".... Unless i'm part of a prepaid group.

For airfare credit/debit is all that works for me. Same for renting a car from the large firms.

Agreed. I don't think anybody would be mad if VFW decided to keep all of the ticket proceeds.

We dropped the ticket idea. We’re just going to try this year without and hopefully it doesn’t spin out of control. Anyway this is the only place I will mention the Black Friday event. It’s November 24 from 8 PM to midnight, Which is Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving).

To attend you need to do two things.

1. Bring canned food items. They must be in date. That is don’t bring expired stuff left over in your pantry. Proteins always work best for this. Proteins are hardest thing for food gatherers to come by. So anything protein related in cans is much appreciated

2. A new, unwrapped toy, for toys for tots. No weapon type items. And please don’t buy the stuff at the dollar store. Get something halfway decent.

3. Also if anyone wants to bring a dish to pass that would be great too. We will have some food available but if you bring some cookies or pizza, these things are always appreciated. We will have pop beverages available so you don’t need to bring those

Note if the quality of your items is subpar, you will be refused entry. That is don’t be a cheapskate. These are charity items at a time year when people need things the most. Please be generous with your heart. And in return you get a night of pinball at the VFW.

I can’t stress this enough. Here we are collecting pinball machines that are worth a lot of money. The least we can do, once a year, is to give back to the local community, with nice can goods and a decent toy for an underappreciated child.

I apologize in advance if these things seem too overwhelming for people to get a hold of. We are looking for people with big hearts for this evening of pinball fun. Those that can only see the negative side of this, we’re not looking for you. Again this is a charity event, we get nothing out of it. We are just providing the venue and the games and the collection point for these items. In return you get to play 200 games for an evening.

if you have any questions direct email me. No PMs. [email protected]

In addition, screaming Scott Randall from the radio station WRIF will be a greeter at the door. He’s handling all the toys for the toys for tots charity. We are trying to get Arthur Penhollow to come too. If you remember him back from the older WRIF days he is quite a personality

Do you mean *other* than the Dayhuff party thread?

Sorry spoke too soon. Black Friday event is canceled. Sorry for the confusion

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Dang, was looking forward to it. Any chance of un-cancelling?

Hope those that are dogging cfh are happy now that the charity event is cancelled.....

dang. that sucks that it is cancelled. I always enjoyed going that night. it was always awesome to see how much food got stuffed into that explorer. I hope things change.

Was at both vfw charity events last year and the may event, had a blast and spent a good amount on food and toys to donate, Clay iI hope you change your mind because I always felt grateful to attend, to bad a couple crybabies have to bitch about everything.

Oh no, one of the main reasons i'm flying back to Michigan for Thanksgiving was to attend the VFW event! What's the story? Is there a related thread with more info?

Posts 195/197/199 in this thread caused it: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dayhuffs-15th-wow-annual-pinball-party-inviteplease-rsvp

man!!! why do people have to be a-holes and ruin a good thing? this event was always fun and it always gave soooo much food to the needy.

I hope it was canceled for other reasons then Pinside trolls. I have been to the Black Friday event in the past and really enjoyed the event. And it was great the event helped out family's and kids during the holidays.

That's it? That was nothing (for Pinside).

That started it. Then the pm's from a-holes.

Those of us who volunteer to work the event have a good time as well. We're proud of the event and the venue we are part of....

Thanks a lot to those that ruined it.

Wow I thought yall were joking......

it's really simple. We have zero tolerance for assholes. this event gains us personally nothing. actually it's just the opposite. i have to spend several hundreds of dollars to get an insurance waver, because you know, some drunk dickhead will manage to burn the place down or push their buddy into a machine and hurt them, etc etc. It also consumes a fair amount of time, energy and other resources to do this event. There's nothing in it for us other than the charity aspect.

And even the charity aspect has its limits. about 1/4 of the food gets thrown out because people are so cheap, they get out-of-date crap from their pantry and use that as their donation. If the food wasn't good enough for you (or your dog or even rats), why would you think it would be OK for people in need? Same thing for the Toys for Tots aspect. Look *i* can go to the dollar store and buy 100 crap toys for $100 too. There's really no point in that, now is there???

The VFW is probably one of the top 5 pinball collections in North America. If the people in michigan don't want to partake and share in the experience, or just want to be dicks, i guess that speaks volumes about their net worth. I saw a TON of people at Dayhuff's for example that i've never seen at the vfw. Now why is that? because Dayhuff's is free and we require a charitable donation? Perhaps. Maybe there are other reasons, maybe they don't know about the event. Hence the post in the Dayhuff thread (after that event was OVER), which seemed like a relevant place to post that info (since we're only about 1 hour from Dayhuff's)... but none of the reasons people don't come are probably good reasons. I thought people here were interested in PINBALL. Apparently that's just not the case...

A lot of work, money, time, energy goes into the VFW. There are literally millions of dollars invested. And we can only be open a few times a year to the public. But frankly if no one here gives a crap about any of that, and they just want to sit home, i guess that tells us something. But what it tells me is it's not worth the trouble to post to this group. it's just wasted time and energy. Frankly i have better things to do and better people to help.

sorry for the rant...

Don't be sorry Clay sometimes people need to be told how it is.most people can't even throw a backyard bbq let alone a large event and have no clue of the time,effort and stress put in before and after an event.and people bringing expired food and dollar store toys? That would piss me the F off as well,nothing worse than putting your heart into something and having a bunch of unappriciative bums running their mouths and being tight ass's.I've done charity raffles through my store and it always strikes a nerve when they want to know how many tickets are sold before they decide if they want to buy one and that's only a $2 donation.

If it was free there would still be a bunch of people that would bitch.

Perhaps because John is actually pleasant to be around and doesn't insult and belittle people?

Oh, and he has a King Kong.

I was pretty excited about this event, heck already purchased a new toy for donation. I think the money from ticket sales for it would have weeded out the free loaders and could of circumvented some of the costs such as the insurance, etc. I literally boast and brag to co workers about what a great place the VFW Pinball museum is, how lucky we are it is so close by and you just gotta come to this event with me. Now it does honestly seem we have all been lumped into the same category and cast aside. That is dissappointing. At least I have a cool toy to donate, it will get to Toys For Tots.

I will be purchasing this to donate,hopefully at the VFW but if not I will take it to the drop off at my union hall. Hopefully it will help a kid fall in love with pinball for a lifetime.

Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens Free Standing Pinball
https://m.toysrus.com/product?productId=59128366

That is a perfect toy to donate!!

Why?!?! SirScott WHY?

If you weren't before, you're definitely on Santa's naughty list now.

Some people have to bully and troll their way through life and get a kick out of ruining fun for others - including those that would benefit from charity. Grow up people!

Anyone with any serious interest in some sort of charity pinball event please send me a direct email. Kicking around some other ideas over thanksgiving weekend. Not going Into details here for obvious reasons. But if you want to be involved email me direct, please no p.m. [email protected]

In general, if someone hosts an event that requires rsvps, the guideline is that about two-thirds of those people will show up. So if you want to have a hundred attend, then accept around 150 rsvps. Just something to consider for anyone not wanting to charge money but still needing to limit the number of attendees.

Actually I think it balances itself out with the people that show up without RSVP'ing, which is VERY frowned upon as far as I'm concerned. 200 RSVP's and 5% don't show but another 5% will show which makes it even-steven in my book.

John

My wife went out to pick up toys and food last weekend.... I'm sure we can find places to donate.

Added over 6 years ago: And I get the two dozen Toll House cookies she was going to bake!

Gosh, I would hope people wouldn't show up without RSVP'ing first. In this day and age, it's not like it's a tough thing to do to fire off an email beforehand.

Again, it was great meeting so many of you at Dayhuff's party this past weekend. I had so many great conversations, and absolutely love the pinball community. You always can drive yourself nuts by focusing on negative aspects...which is unfortunate because there are so many overwhelming positives out there.

Clay, you do some great stuff for the community. Hope you have a successful charity event, whatever it may be.

Thank you Mr. pmWolf. We’re trying to come up with something that works for everybody

Clay is truly an asset to Michigan pinball. Not only is VFW one of the best collections in the world, he's saved my ass on short notice home repairs a few times over the past 5-7 years. Always grateful for what he and his crew do, very bummed to hear of people trying to ruin these great holiday events. I can't believe people would bring expired food to a charity food drive, the lowest of the low. I'll always remember two or three years ago for the Black Friday event a bud and I bought 100 cans of food from Meijer and when we told Clay at the door it'd take us a few trips from the car he thought we were crazy. He seemed genuinely happy, and it felt good to give a little to someone who has done so much.

After I invited a friend to the Black Friday Event it got canceled. So I sent him an email, this is his reply:

**
Thanks man, i actually work this black friday too! If theres a toy drive i may still donate though
**

Any updates on if the event is taking place? I emailed but didn’t hear back.

Stay tuned, i'm sending Clay some Pamprin for that menstrual cycle, hopefully it clears soon!

Wow, the shame of this whole exchange is that the actual losers are the kids who were getting toys for Christmas who might otherwise not be and the food going to those in need.

I find it appalling that grown-ass men can't act like grown-ass men (I'm not throwing the ladies in here because I've honestly never encountered a female troll in this hobby)! Granted, this hobby is about toys but they are rather expensive toys. So put the fuck up or shut up.

And, SirScott, I don't have a clue who you are but you are the one who is coming off as the complete jerkoff.

Thanks again clay and staff for another great event tonight

It was a fun one alright!

The new Flex Lanes on Northbound US 23 were just completed on Monday of this week which provided faster access than ever before for invited VIP guests to the "Black Tie Friday" Charity gala.

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So wait - this event happened ? I thought it was canceled !

Yes, it did.
This is part of what was collected for the Toys for Tots.
Screaming Scott of WRIF had a giant task of "Tetris" to load the donations in his truck.

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You do realize that you can donate food and toys without having to do so through a pinball show, correct? Heck, you don't even need to have the excuse of Christmas to do it, either.