Last night I attended the First Annual Banquet & Fundraiser of a new branch of the Quality Deer Management Association. The Connecticut River Valley Branch which is in it’s first year held the festivities at the Zandri’s Stillwood Inn in Wallingford, Connecticut.

They started the night off with Mr. Matt Ross who is the New England/Canada Regional Director of the QDMA giving a short but informative overview of the Associations goals and their mission.

Then they had a few words from the President of the Connecticut River Valley Branch Mr. Ron Reaves. I had the pleasure of speaking with him over the phone in the past and he is a very nice gentleman who has hopes of expanding this new branch and continuing what the QDMA has started.

Then they had the Pledge of Allegiance which I did not know but, they like to do that before every event such as this. My personal opinion it was a very nice touch.

The last thing they did before the meal was a blessing of the meal from Branch Vice President Mr. Bill Sieff which was also a nice touch.

Through the night you had a chance to fill out raffle tickets for the many gifts that were graciously donated from quite a few businesses around the state like for instance Cabela’s who will be opening their brand new East Hartford store in October. From my neck of the woods was a donation of a gift certificate from Homestead Taxidermy in Woodstock and from right in Wallingford itself is the gun shop Connecticut Sporting Arms, LLC who donated three different types of guns.

All through the night they were having a silent auction of some very nice items and shortly after Dinner which was very nice they had a live auction of some of the nicest prints I have seen in awhile, those would have made anyone’s living room look nice for sure. I have to say that I have not seen very many live auctions or auctioneers for that matter but the auctioneer they had made that part of the event so much fun that I spent half the time laughing like crazy.

It was a fun time had by all and I for one had a great time and look forward to next years banquet. I would also like to say that whether you deer hunt or not The QDMA and their new Connecticut branch of the Connecticut River Valley is very dedicated to promoting a healthy high quality deer herd and wildlife conservation in general.

For more information please visit there website “Quality Deer Management Association”

or you can contact

Ron Reaves - Branch President > crvb-qdma@sbcglobal.net

or

Matt Ross - New England Regional Director > mross@whitetailstewarts.org

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