Recaps in red [color]
From Raleigh:
The Founder's Reception was wonderful & hugely successful. There were 14 tables of 10...at 1K or 2.5K per seat. Everyone was dressed beautifully, and in a joyous party mood. Free beer and wine was served at the bar in back of the room and lovely trays of appetizers were out for everyone to help themselves. There was enough variety and quantity of food that there was no need for dinner before or after.
Before the program started, they sent one table at a time to have each of our pics taken individually with Clay & Diane. When it was my turn, Clay gave me a warm hello & then grabbed me around the waist & pulled me next to him. Diane came up on my other side & put her arm around me, but by now I was in the Aiken fog. I have no recollection of even smiling for the camera, but I imagine I did. And the next thing I remember is that I was back at my table. You've already seen gaymarie's wonderful pics, so you know how gorgeous Clay looked.
The program started with Aron introducing an autistic young man who drew the darling pic on our placemat type gift. It was of two cartoon characters shaking hands & saying, "Everybody need to be included. No one should ever feel left out". He then spoke, & he was absolutely both touching & delightful. Then Clay, Diane,& Zach, a board member, came on stage and answered pre-asked questions about NIP from the audience. Clay was charming and amusing, as always.
Then the auction for one dinner with Clay for 10. Clay wound up agreeing to 2 such dinners, for $28,000 each. You already know about the green shirt. The auction for the "CD of a song sung by Clay that none of us have ever heard" won't happen until tomorrow night. Also Clay did not sing AT ALL! The singing will also be tomorrow night. I suspect that was Clay's effort to make up for last year's fiasco.