Getting in the Holiday Spirit with SmithBucklin

One of the cool things about being a business unit of SmithBucklin is our parent company’s commitment to giving back. Take the “Charity Makes Sense” program in which we’re all participating.

Earlier in the month we had something called “Penny Wars.” You know how annoying it can be to end up with a pocketful of pennies. Well, in Penny Wars each floor downtown was competing against the others to collect the most pennies. I, of course, held up Tech Image’s end since I seem to be a penny magnet. One of the other fun things about it is if you threw in silver to another floor’s jar, they LOST that amount in their total. So there was a lot of competition.

This week Charity Makes Sense is collecting school supplies for needy children in Chicago. I imagine the Walgreens across the street has seen a nice bump in sales of school supplies the past couple of weeks. (Note to self: go to Walgreens today.)

The big event, though, is an online auction of some very cool prizes. When you work for the world’s largest association management company, hotels, resorts and other suppliers love to curry favor. So there are plenty of weekend get-aways and other prizes to be had. Some of the top management folks are contributing prizes too, such as a movie night at the home theater of CEO Henry Givray, a poker night with CFO Al Koob, a home-cooked gourmet French meal and other fun stuff.

One I might bid on is golf at the Stonehenge Country Club with Tech Image president Mike Nikolich. If I win I will invite managing director Tim Boivin along too. Neither of us is any good at golf, so we’ll be able to drive Mike crazy as he waits for us to give up on finding our balls in the woods, or we creep along 10 yards at a time.

The final auction winners will be determined at the company’s holiday party on December 16 – where admittance usually requires a donation of canned or boxed food. Looking forward to all of it.

-By Ken Krause