Happy 2023 from all of us to all of you!  2023 is already looking like it is going to be a very exciting year!
We have many new members that have joined us over the last few months. 
2023 Festival planning starts at our next meeting.  We already have previous vendors reserving their spots for the upcoming festival.  We will open up the application for new vendors soon, but we always give last year's vendors first choice on reserving their spots again.
We have opened our building to allow the Masonic Lodge to meet monthly until repairs on their building are completed.  As many of you know, the building 
We have opened our building to groups that used to meet at the Methodist Church, also, since they no longer have that option.  
We wish you all a happy and healthy 2023!

This year has definitely been a crazy one!  The 2022 Festival was a huge success!  This year, we added a Golf Cart Drawing.  We had new entertainment, new vendors, and many return vendors!  We continued with Cow Patty Bingo, and the kids and adults all enjoyed having our petting zoo provided by Tater Mound Minis.  Who doesn't love being able to play with mini animals?  Another addition to this year's festival was pony rides, provided by Apostolic Faith Tabernacle Church out of Cloverdale.  

We are looking for new volunteers to join us and bring your ideas for our 2023 Festival!  We meet the first Monday of every month,  6:30pm,  at the Festival building located at 50 Walnut St in Monrovia.  

We have a new executive board!  Our 2023 slate of officers is as follows: 
President: Bill Chapple
Vice President: Darlene Standeford
Treasurer: Michael Moore
Secretary:  Erricka Jones
Member-At-Large: Judy Brandt
Congratulations to our new executive board!

Our next event on the schedule is our annual Halloween Party!  This will be held on October 31st at the Festival Building from 5-8pm.  We will have lots of treats for the kids!  We will also have a photo area set up as well.  Photos provided by Photography by Erricka Jones.  All we ask for photos is a donation!
 
Our annual Christmas Party will be held on Saturday, December 5 from 5-8pm.  We know that this is the same weekend as Victorian Christmas and hope that you will enjoy Victorian Christmas during the day, and warm up with us in the evening.  Santa will be here to meet with the kids also. 

We look forward to seeing you at our next meeting on Monday, November 7 at 6:30pm.  

Our tractor drawing went digital this year!  Well, for the actual drawing results anyway.  We still drew every single ticket, leaving only the winner of the tractor for the last ticket.  Our winners for both cash prizes, and the tractor are listed here:

The full list of tickets drawn:

Congratulations to all of our winners!

We are now accepting Square payments for our building rentals and Festival Vendor Payments!  This is new to us, so be patient as we get it all figured out.  
All new invoices will be sent via Square invoices.  You will be able to make payments from home without having to wait to mail in a check.  There is, however, a convenience fee for this service.  A 3% fee will be added for all electronic payments.  You do still have the option to mail in a check or money order so you do not have to pay this fee.
We are in the process of changing over invoices already sent out to the new system, so watch for those if you have a balance due!

Lots of new and exciting things are taking place with the Festival Building, and around town!
We have upgraded our electrical boxes around town that we use for the Monrovia Festival vendors.
We are working to upgrade the retention wall that hold up our parking lot on Main St.  Also, the steps that go down the hill from the back of the parking lot have been upgraded.
We have been doing a lot of painting around the outside of our building.  The picnic tables have been painted, as well as all of our parking bumpers.  We have repaired doors that have long needed to be repaired, and we are going to be making upgrades to our meeting room as well.
We are excited to share our upgrades with you!  Please stop by to see us during one of our regular monthly meetings.  We are always looking for volunteers to join the committee and help with our community events.  If you are interested in volunteering, please fill out the form on our contact page.

At tonight's monthly meeting, we had our elections.  New board members have been appointed by our committee members!  Congratulations to our new board!  All will be sworn in at our November meeting.

President:  Karen Wagner
Vice President:  Bill Chapel
Secretary:  Stephanie Parks
Treasurer:  Shane Alexander
Member at Large:  Judy Brandt
Communications:  Erricka Jones

We have many new committee members that have brought some great ideas to the table for next year's festival!  We hope to gain more members soon.  Please let us know if you are interested in becoming a member.  We meet the first Monday of every month at the Festival building.  
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Our next event is the Halloween Party!  Bring the kids for trick or treating and a professional photo booth (Provided by Photography by Erricka Jones).  We will even have a DJ (Brian Jones of Muzik & Memories)!  There will be refreshments as well.  We look forward to seeing all of the kids in costume!

Here is the parade form. The parade will be on Sunday September 10. It will start at 3:00 from the elementary school parking lot. Parade participants need to be checking in around 1:30. Hope to see you there!

The Masonic Lodge will be having their car show again during the festival. It will be on Sat Sept 9 from 9-3. Make sure you stop by and check them out or register to show of your car, truck, or motorcycle! Hope to see you there!

Tractor tickets are now available!!! Please contact us on FB or you can call Adrienne at 317-850-7465 if you would like to buy a ticket. If you don't know how this works, we give away a 5045E John Deere tractor! Tickets are $100. We sell 450 tickets. We pull out EVERY TICKET! The last ticket drawn is the winner of the tractor. There are $3,500 cash prizes given out during the drawing. If you don't want the tractor, you can take the $14,000 cash option. The drawing will be on Saturday Sept 9 starting at 3:00. You do not need to be present to win. 

We are happy to announce that there will be a cornhole tournament during the festival this year!!! Please see the attached form and pre-register before Saturday September 9. We hope this will be a big success!! Hope to see you there!!