​3 Digit Raffle
January 2023
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This was another great chance to help our local charities while hopefully helping yourself as well. For a measly $5, you could even give these out as stocking stuffers. Numbers were drawn each night in January, so you could have win 31 times! (But you didn't. I'll bet you)
If you were serious about wanting to play, you had to jump on this one immediately. There were only 1,000 tickets available to start, and they ALWAYS sell out!
Now you'll be kicking yourself tomorrow because you waited a day too long to cough up your five-spot.
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Thanks a million to you, from all of us at Ravens Roost 138!
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If you, for some unknown reason, didn't get in on this opportunity to help our local charities (and yourself at the same time), then shame on you.
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Maybe next year.
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Charity Award Night
January 18, 2023
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The upstairs meeting room at Monaghan's Pub was "packed to the gills" for this event. Most of our 40+ members were there, as were 14 representatives of the organizations we had selected to receive our donation checks this year.
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The brief presentation made by each organization was very informative, and truly justified our decisions to include them in our charitable distributions this year.
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New to our list for 2023 were My New Book, Inc and Churches For Streets of Hope.
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Including the $11,100 distributed on this night, our Roost has now given out $82,000 since our first Charitable Donation Night in 2016.
Without our Roost members and loyal Roost supporters, however, we are nothing. Unlike the government, our Roost can't just print money. We must rely upon your charitable nature to provide us with the means to distribute these funds. Our Roost conducts a number of fund-raising activities each year, but make no mistake, the money being distributed was yours.
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On behalf of our entire Roost membership, we thank Monaghan's Pub and all of you for your support. You're the greatest!
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POLAR BEAR PLUNGE
February 4, 2023
11AM - 4PM
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Well, it's now over for this year. Our four dedicated plungers, Will, Christine, Larry and Jean braved some pretty severe elements on this day and showed us all just what they are made of. If you even opened your front door to get your paper on Saturday morning, you HAVE TO appreciate their efforts on our behalf.
I guess it wouldn't be called "Polar Bear Plunge" if they held it in July, but come on, man! 15 degrees??????
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Overall, your ravens Roost 138 Plunge Team was responsible for collecting $2,335 for Special Olympics Maryland. According to my research, that places us 8th of 19 among Ravens Roost Plunge Teams. Not bad, when you consider that we only persuaded 4 people to sacrifice their bodies for this cause.
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For a brief time, you can still donate to our Team by CLICKING HERE but you'll need to do that soon.
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For those who want to participate in this event while sitting around your living room in your PJ's, you can check out the photos of our plungers in the scrolling box above, and under the PHOTO GALLERY tab above.
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Council Bull and Oyster Roast
February 11, 2023
7PM - 12PM
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It seems that the Council has done it again. They said that this year’s Bull and Oyster Roast at Martin’s West was a total sellout, and the place really showed it as well. All the tables were filled with fellow Roosters eating, drinking, and making merry. I’m pretty sure that Doc brought some of his own cheer in a bottle too.
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Captain Dee-Fense showed up again as he always does. POE didn’t make it this year, maybe because of the broken wing he suffered a few months ago, but EDGAR filled in that gap quite nicely.
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Ex Raven Femi Ayanbadejo pestered Jean all night to have a photo taken with her. She finally gave in (but only after he had given her an autographed photo. She really wanted that ring, but he refused to cough it up). We hacked his phone and got a copy of that photo. It’s been posted here for his entire family to see.
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And then there were the SIX TABLES that were occupied by Ravens Roost 138 members and friends. What an awesome showing by our Roost!
Well, our 2023 Ravens Roost 138 Bull and Oyster Roast is now in the books. And what a fantastic evening it was too!
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There was plenty of great food to be had (catered by our friends at Monaghan's Pub, of course), a lot of great company, and some pretty good music.
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There was also a well-stocked liquor wheel, some 50/50 raffle boards, a boatload of silent auction items, boards of chance for a signed Tucker jersey and facsimile Superbowl rings, a number of door prizes, and more.
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I, personally, didn't win a single thing again this year, but there were plenty of Roost members and friends there that did.
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I wasn't able to capture photos of anyone embarrassing themselves this year, but I probably just missed it.
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You know who you are.
Ravens Roost 138
Bull and Oyster Roast
April 29, 2023
7:00 PM - 11 PM
Council of Baltimore Ravens Roosts Convention
Ocean City, MD
June 1st - June 4th, 2023
Hopefully you had a chance to register to go with your fellow RR138 members and the rest of the Ravens world to attend this, the Council's landmark event of the year. There was plenty of fun things to do, beverages to drink, fun in the sun, and a great parade on Baltimore Avenue.
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A great time was had by all, and NONE of our members ended up in jail.
Catonsville Parade - July 4, 2023
2023 gave us another great weather day on which to celebrate our Country's birthday! Countless Roost 138 members and more than a couple of other Marylanders lined the streets (and bars) again in downtown Catonsville to partake of these local holiday festivities. Our Roost did not sponsor a float this year, but we DID sponsor the Ravens Marching Band, and our banner was again prominently displayed in the parade. Check it out in the scrolling window on our HOME page.
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Hopefully, no one took the lawn chairs or ropes that you used to reserve your desired spot along Frederick Road. Assuming that you still have those, don't forget to put them someplace where you can remember where they are in July 2024. You're going to need them again.
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Second Annual
Ravens Roost 138 Tailgate Party
October 8, 2023
9AM - Noon
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We had such a great time doing this last year that we just COULDN'T POSSIBLY even think of not repeating it again (hence the name "Second Annual". Get it?)
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It's now in the books, though.
There was no rain this year, but the wind was problematic at times. It's a good thing that the sun was out to greet those of our Roost members who attended.
Thanks to our hard-working chiefs Rick and Carroll, food was flying off the grill (and some even flew off the table thanks to the wind). Cornhole bags were flying too!
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A good time was had by all that attended.
Socktober 2023
October 1 - 30
It's all over now.
There are still PLENTY of cold feet here in the Baltimore area, and we've made it OUR mission to solve this problem once and for all.
By now you SHOULD know the drill, but for the newbies among us, every October our Roost collects new men's, woman's and children's socks to donate to local men's and women's shelters.
This year we collected four huge bags of socks thanks to your generosity. These bags have now been delivered to The German Children's Hospital and the West Side Men's Shelter in Baltimore County.
Annual
Charity Auction
October 19, 2023
Were you feeling charitable this night? We were, and apparantly you were too.
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Most of the valuable stuff we collected from our Roost members and Monaghan's Pub vendors (those guys are the greatest!), went home with a charitable Roost member or one of the many other Pub visitors.
We sincerely thank all those who opened their pocketbooks to help our many preferred charitable organizations.
This auction is one of our two largest fund raisers of the year, and it again proved up to the challenge. When the final hammer fell, we had cleared around $6,500.
It was a Win - Win for our Roost, for the bidders, and for our local charities!
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​Marine Toys For Tots Toy Drive
November, 2023
Some people put out cookies and milk for Santa. We're going to do a whole lot better than that!
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On October 31st, a giant Toys For Tots box magically appeared at Monaghan's Pub.
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But it was EMPTY!
Our Roost's goal was to fill this box to overflowing - not just once but multiple times - with new, unwrapped toys. You know, the GOOD stuff that you would buy for your own children or grandchildren.
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There are far too many kids out there that wouldn't get ANYTHING at all for Christmas without the toys collected every year by the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation. The problem is that there are way too many kids for the Foundation to provide toys to without YOUR help.
Those of you who donated toys this year will be the Santa for children you don't know and will probably never meet. Now THAT'S love.
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Our Elves made their first delivery run to Santa's secret Toy Transfer Station on November 15th where they left some huge bags of toys with Ms. Claus. Since that time, they made two more deliveries to Ms. Claus. The box was emptied out for the final time on December 1st.
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All of the toys are now at the secret Toy Transfer Station. From there, Santa will be taking over the very complex distribution and delivery activities as only HE, his elves, and his reindeer are equipped to do.
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Don't forget - you can track Santa on his toy delivery mission on the NORAD website.
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Silent Auction
November 12, 2023
“It ain’t over ‘till it’s over”.
Even Yogi would have to admit that this applies to more than just baseball.
Case in point, Ravens Roost 138 wasn't quite over with our auctions for the year on October 19th. We held our next and final 2023 auction on Sunday, November 12th. This one was our annual silent auction that we always hold after our normal charity auction.
Up for grabs this time were those unclaimed items from our charity auction plus a bunch of new merch, including golf shirts, umbrellas, a fire pit, and much more stuff. We had hoped to have some full-size replica helmets up for grabs too, but unfortunately that didn't happen. If we had received them, our proceeds would have been much better than the $405 that we ultimately managed to scrape out this night.
Bummer!
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Roost 138
Annual Holiday Gathering
December 20, 2023
7:30 PM
Hopefully you were able to hang around following the regularly scheduled December Roost meeting. If you did, you bellied up to the food bar and then ate at a table with some other Roost members. It was a great opportunity to learn more about the other members, and to eat all you could force down at the same time.
I'm certain that you're glad you did!
2023 Roost News
Ravens Roost 138 is a registered 501 (c) 3 organization in the State of Maryland. Donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.