Scenes from Minocqua's Beef-A-Rama (clockwise from top left): the Rotary Beer Garden on the parade route; one of the beef roasters in competition for best roast; Rotarians "bull riding" in the parade of beef; lots of people wear at least one article of cow-themed clothing; and instead of ducks we could hire a cow and sell squares- the winning square is the one that receives the cow pie
You may have noticed that the newsletter was on hiatus for the past two weeks while I was making my annual trek to the north woods of Wisconsin. Our visit always overlaps with Minocqua’s Beef-A-RamaTM (yes, it's trademarked), and the local Lakeland Rotarians, who number about 70 between their morning and noon groups, make excellent use of the event to raise funds for their projects. The noontime club hosts a beer garden while the morning club hosts the morning “Rump Roast Run”, in which nearly 1,000 runners participated. Together these events raise around $50,000 for club projects, and little effort is needed for publicity, especially for the beer garden, since there’s a hot market for beer in Wisconsin.