Benefit Organizers Play the Name Game
What’s in a name? Everything for a benefit chairwoman. When you need a champion for a cause, only a big social name will do.
“There’s a lot of competition on the Orange County charity circuit right now,” said Floss Schumacher on Tuesday at the kickoff luncheon for the committee of the Oaks Fall Classic, the Aug. 30 brunch/horse-jumping competition for UC Irvine’s College of Medicine. “A big name, especially someone who has staged successful past fund-raisers, helps attract clout to a cause.”
A klatch of Orange County’s social movers--Maria Crutcher, Mary Roosevelt and Nora Hester, for starters--rallied around Oaks Classic Chairwoman Peggy Goldwater Clay at the luncheon-meeting staged in Irvine Hall on the UCI campus.
“Peggy is known for an ability to lead with a smile,” said Schumacher, chairwoman of last year’s Oaks Fall Classic. “A chairwoman should be like a conductor-- not a boss--someone who knows the score and keeps things running smoothly.”
Clay, daughter of former Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, hopes her famous pop will attend the horse-jumping benefit at heiress Joan Irvine Smith’s equestrian center in San Juan Capistrano. “Daddy’s phenomenal ,” Clay said of her 80-ish and newly married father. “He even may get back on the lecture circuit. His television comments about Watergate during its recent anniversary really got people going.”
Her goal for this year’s benefit (with tickets at the rail going for $200 each and regular tickets selling for $125)? “A lot of fun,” said Clay, who was dressed in a brightly colored pansy-print suit. “If people don’t have fun when I chair something, I feel I haven’t done my job.”
Clay’s recipe for fun will include having enough hostesses on the job to make people feel comfortable. “For example, I like to receive some contact from a committee member when I arrive at a party,” Clay said. “It’s no fun to walk into a big crowd and be ignored.”
Clay also hopes to fill the event with big names--celebrities and such. “And a politician or two if you can find one,” she joked to her committee. She also hopes to get party-goers to pay more attention to the equestrian side of the affair.
“Last year, everybody was having a wonderful time looking at each other,” Clay said. “But Joan Irvine Smith works so hard to stage the horse-jumping competition we need to pay closer attention to it.
“This year, the jumping will occur a little later in the day than it did last year. That will give people time to chat first. And, we’ll have literature on the tables to help people follow the horses.”
Also on the committee: Constance Morthland; Renee Segerstrom; Donna Crean; Dr. Walter Henry, dean of UCI College of Medicine, and his wife, Maria del Carmen Calvo; Janice and Roger Johnson; Walter and Gerry Schroeder, and Georgia Frontiere.