1st Annual Tybee Wine Fest

The first Tybee Wine Festival benefiting the restoration of the historic Tybee Post Theater was an amazing event. May 9th at the Lighthouse was a beautiful Tybee afternoon with over 300 people in attendance tasting over 100 wines from all over the world. Attendees also enjoyed the talents of some of the island’s best chefs and the music from the band FOFOTT. Old Savannah Tours provided trolley service to the theater for people to tour the theater and see the progress and future plans.

Lots of folks took the tour and saw the theater for the first time. All the proceeds will go to “Burn the Mortgage” and “Raise the Curtain” hopefully in 2010. Many great people shared their time, resources and donations to make this festival a reality.

Check out more great photos at:

The Tybee Times

The Friends of the Tybee Theater would like to thank each and every one. Without their contributions the festival would not have happen. To our wine vendors and restaurants, THANK YOU!

• Savannah Distributing Wines
  
• Empire Distributors
  
• Atlanta Wholesale Wine
• National Distributing Company
  
• Ultimate Distributors
  
• Georgia Crown Distributing
• Quality Wine & Spirits
  
• Prestige Wine Wholesale
  

• Sting Ray’s
  
• Sundae Café
  
• The Breakfast Club
  
• Fannies on the Beach
  
• Marlin Monroe’s
  
• Papa’s Bar-B-Que
• The Hunter House

To our sponsors – Thank you for your financial support to underwrite the cost of the festival.

• City of Tybee
  
• Tybee Tourism Council
• TIHS/Tybee Island Light Station
  
• Tybee Cottages
• Chu’s Convenience Marts/Chu’s Liquor
  
• XYZ Liquors
• Atlantis Inn
  
• Solomon Properties
• Mermaid Cottages
  
• Tybee Vacation Rentals
• My Beach House Rentals
  
• Lighthouse Inn
• Crab Shack
  
• Desoto Beach Hotel
• Sandy’s by the Shore
  
• Lat 32
• Seaside Sisters
  
• Tybee Beach Vacation Rentals
• Ed & Jane Feiler
  
• Linda & Ron Gladdin
• Ralph Douglas Jones
  
• Old Savannah Tours
  
• Will Green
• Image Is Everything
  
• Tybee Beach Vacation Rentals

To our wonderful and talented Volunteers – Thank you for your talents and the gift of your time to create the festival and make it so enjoyable for all that attended.

Michael Graham, Lamar Outdoor, who designed our wonderful poster

The FOFOTT Band: Steve Bryan, Rhett Mouchet, Ed Ayers, Ross Kelly, Roy Franco

Twila Davis, Richard Adams, Cullen Chambers, Ginger & Steve Strickland, First City Enterprises, Nick & Diana Sears, Cindy & Craig Meyer, Bonnie Gaster, Sue Waters Reese, Sherry Weathers, Robin Turner, Vivian Dubuc, Tybee Breeze, Cyndi Kinkel, Tybee Times, Resort Rentals, Sue & Bill Blakey, John & Mildred Hill, Suzi Nesbit, Dianna Solomon, Julie Weiler, Sue Bentley, Savannah Buchanan, Karen Penick, Cindy Young, Sally & Charles Yarber, John & Jessica Mnieckowski, Frank & Karen Kelly, Susan Holiday, Terry Spatz, Maria Lancaster, Cort & John Atkinson, Michael Bodine, Ken Carter, Len Cripe, Gordon Matthews, Susie Morris, Cecil & Elizabeth Johnson.

And all of the any volunteers of Friends of the Tybee Theater

Cindy Meyer
FOTT Special Events Coordinator

1st Annual Volunteer Tybee is a Big Success

FOTT board member & Tybee Times Publisher Cyndi Kinkel joins the gals

Jane Bridges and I participated with 19 other organizations in the first “Volunteer Tybee” event at the Guard House Community Center on Wednesday April 22nd. The purpose of the event was to raise awareness of the various community organizations that benefit Tybee Island and to sign up volunteers.

Volunteer Tybee was well attended and we were able to sign up several new volunteers. The general opinion of the other organizations I talked with was very positive. Everyone was delighted at the opportunity to have all the various groups together in one place. It was terrific to see so many people working to improve and care for Tybee Island. Thanks to Freda Ruthford, Sandy Majors and everyone at Tybee Neighbors for making this such a successful event.


Jane, left & Terry show off Friends of the Tybee Theater

Bye for now,
Terry Spatz FOTT Board Member

Crowd photos courtesy of the Tybee Times

State Grant for Facade Work

As you may already know, FOTT has been award a $20,000 matching grant to restore and replace the front facade windows. Representatives from the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Revenue recently visited the theater to get the ball rolling.

Carole Moore, grants coordinator and Bill Hover, architectural reviewer, take some snaps.

We are very lucky to have Cullen Chambers on board to manage this project for us.

The Tybee Historical Society and its president, Jim Kluttz are very gracious to loan Cullen to us to work on this project. Since this is the only true historic preservation aspect to the theater renovation it is important that the job is done right. With Cullen's help it will be done.

We are so excited to get started!

All for now

Pam

FOTT Annual Meeting

We had a great crowd at our first annual members meeting at the American Legion, Feburary 19. Attendees were updated on what happened in 2008 and also what is a head in 2009.



Linda Gladin was one of many board members with updates. She walked members and guests through our financial information. The 2008 annual report will soon be availble on our web site and has a great overview of our accomplishments for the year.

Ken Carter, board member and director of the Lucas also updated us on events for the summer including the Tybee Drive In.

We also announced several initiatives. One was a design plan from architect Neil Dawson who has worked with us over the past couple of months. His mandate was to figure out how to get the theater open in the minimum amount of time with a minimum amount of money. He presented a great 3-phase plan that get us up and running on a limited basis for a total of $405,000. Plans will be available soon on our website.



We also announced a major fundraising initiative to Burn the Mortgage. Having to pay $3,000 each greatly hampers our ability to move forward with building improvements. Please help us raise the $350,000 needed to pay off this debt. FOTT members and Tybee Islanders will soon be getting a packet of information on this need. We are doubly grateful for donations received during these stressful financial times. When you get the mailer please consider donating. Each dollar received gets us closer to our goal.

Awards were given to past board members including past presidents Laurel Brady & Susie Morris.



Several city council members were on hand including Dick Smith and his wife Carolyn as well as our mayor Jason Buelterman.

We were honored to have George Lee in attendance. George is South GA Field Representative for Lt. Governor Casey Cagle.


Pictured from left, Susie Morris, Laurel Brady, Pamela Lappin, George Lee.

Thanks to everyone for their support and attendance!