The 10th Annual MICA Gala Dinner & Auction opened with a slightly different twist - a whimsical 'rap' by the 'MICA Rappers' Michael Ernst, Brom Hart, Janice Tanner Ernst, and Jeannie McLean. They enthralled the packed house with a 'rap' of the history of MICA. That set the stage for an overwhelming success and appropriately making the 10th GDA our biggest ever. Please take a moment to view our slide show of photos from the evening.

Nearly everyone went home with one or more treasures which contributed to the huge success of the evening. In excess of $70,000 was raised to support our partnered acquisitions of Mahone Bay islands - working toward our goal of bringing the islands back into public ownership for conservation, protection and traditional public use.

The silent auction items provided something for everybody and the live auction captivated the audience with such a variety of exquisite art work, vacation packages and interesting items. The pair of antique oxen, with ties to Sacrifice Island, provided a lighter side to the auction and fetched a nice sum. We would like to thank our 36 Corporate Sponsors for their significant contribution. This was another record, up from 25 Corporate Supporters in 2011. We were very pleased to add one more Corporate Supporter during the course of the evening to make the 36.

The GDA committee, headed up by co-chairs Brom Hart and Georg Ernst, outdid themselves again with a superbly organized evening. We would like to offer a huge thank you to our GDA Committee and all the helpers for yet another wonderful event - well done! The theme of the evening was '10 years-10 islands'. In our 10 short years of existence, we are very pleased and proud to say that we have jointly acquired 10 islands in partnership. These are Andrews, Backmans, Covey, the northern end of Masons, Sacrifice and recently Shag in addition to the donation of Long, Dry, Centre and Snipe Islands. Chair John Meisner, in his address, advised "...we are working on several potential acquisition projects and to stay tuned."

Scott & Patti Robertson were busy last night, as there was lots of activity at our membership table with renewals, new memberships and one significant donation to MICA! If you did not get a chance to renew your membership for the year - please contact Scott Robertson at lunenburg22@hotmail.com or 634-3247.

MICA is a volunteer organization and these initiatives would not be possible without the tireless dedication of our volunteer Board of Directors, GDA committee, community and government partners, corporate sponsors, members and many other volunteers and supporters.

Congratulations to all involved and thank you to those who attended for being such an important part of the legacy we jointly are creating.

Sincerely,
MICA Board of Directors

Updated January 8, 2020
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