Another year is upon us and we’re excited to see it here. There aren’t too many updates to provide at the moment. Apart from inventory and other year-end processes, not too much happens at the windmill this time of year.

We’re still waiting on the official Welcome Center numbers, but it looks like we experienced at least a 12-13% increase in visitor traffic this year. We had visitors from all 50 states again in addition to a number of foreign countries including every continent besides Antarctica. We’re optimistic about our gift shop revenue as well, with sales figures that will likely be our highest on record since 2009. We hope to have all of the official numbers soon.

In the meantime, planning for the annual meeting is underway. This year we’re rebranding the event as the “Windmill Expo” in an attempt to make the event more appealing to the community and encourage attendance. The usual annual meeting and election of board members will take place, but we hope to encourage the public to attend this event and learn about everything we do as an organization over the course of the year. This event also typically doubles as a membership drive, and as usual, we encourage everyone not already part of our membership program to consider getting involved this year. We need all of the support we can get from our community and hope to have a strong showing when we gather together at the end of this month.

The Expo will be held on Tuesday, January 30^th at 5:30PM in the Elk Horn Town Hall. Food and drinks will be provided and the event will feature a presentation by Shaun on everything the organization accomplished in 2023 and what our projected plans are for foreseeable future including 2024. This is a great opportunity to come and talk with our staff and Board of Directors about everything our organization does and what else you might like to see us get involved with in the future. As always, this event is free to attend and open to the public. We hope everyone can make it.

Finally, we are seeking volunteers this year for a number of different projects. The windmill is sitting on a large archive of photographs, newspaper clippings, and documents that need to be digitized. This work can be done on site using our own equipment. Anyone interested in helping us document these records is welcome to do so, only basic proficiency of operating a computer is required. To learn more or express interest, get in touch with Shaun at 712-764-7472 or via email at mgr@danishwindmill.com.

Traffic at the windmill has finally slowed down with Christmas approaching and the holiday shopping season coming to a close. While we don’t have the final numbers just yet, December proved to be an outstanding month to cap off what will undoubtedly be a historic year for us. Sales skyrocketed to heights not seen in over 10 years, and if we don’t hit 70,000 visitors before the end of the year we will certainly be close. We want to thank everyone for following along and hope you are as excited about the year we had and what that might mean for next year.

Our annual appeal for donations went out two weeks ago. We’re so very thankful for those who have already given this year and hope to continue raising funds into the next year to help with covering next year’s substantial operating expenses. As the letter we sent out acknowledged, our operation is by no means profitable. And while sales revenue from the gift shop are very exciting, we are still well below our ability to cover all of the expenses of operating the windmill and everything that comes with it. This year we spent $20,000 just on the interstate billboards encouraging travelers to come to Elk Horn. These expenses, while less exciting than capital projects, account for the most critical needs of our organization to function, and we hope that people may continue to give in support of our cause.

The publication of our annual appeal carried with it another problem that we hope to have resolved soon. At some point in the last 6 weeks or so, the function of our website to accept electronic donations has broken down. Unfortunately, at the risk of disrupting site traffic and end-of-year webstore sales for the gift shop, this situation could not be resolved before the end of the year. We hope to have it addressed after January 1.

On a more positive note, though, the resolution we did come up with was to debut our new membership site slightly ahead of schedule. While it is still technically under construction, we encourage everyone to have a look over at danishwindmill.wildapricot.org (to be danishwindmill.org soon). This website is part of the membership/donor management software we invested in at the beginning of the year as part of grant funding received from the Pomeroy Foundation. It is intended as a membership-specific website for members of our organization (which everyone reading this paper should already be!). On this website, you can manage your membership, make secure donations, download our quarterly newsletter, learn about volunteering opportunities, and much more. We’re already in the process of uploading files from our digital collection including the Vestergaard account book which was completely scanned in high resolution images last year. Going forward, you will even see the articles we publish in this paper including this one! So go ahead and check out danishwindmill.wildapricot.org. We’re very excited to finally have this new website out in the open. And danishwindmill.com isn’t going anywhere… for now.

From the Danish Windmill to all of you, we wish all of our supporters far and wide a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We’ll be busy conducting inventory through the rest of the year. If you want to help us out, just come in and buy something!

This year the Danish Windmill participated in Christkindlmarket Des Moines for the 6^th consecutive year. It is an annual festival styled after the famous German Christmas markets in Europe featuring performances, authentic foods, and a cluster of unique vendors. From November 30 – December 3, we had a portion of our gift shop stored in a tiny 8’x10’ hut alongside other vendors outside Principal Park in downtown Des Moines. It was far and away the best year we’ve had at this market, and we’re excited to share some of the behind-the-scenes information on how it all comes together. Be sure to read to end to find out why we keep coming back to this event every year!

The process for the annual market actually begins in Spring. All vendors reapply to participate on a yearly basis. Part of this process includes deciding on what to sell, what your electrical needs will be, and whether or not you want a pop-up tent or wooden hut for your business. The pop-up tents are flimsy and have been torn down by wind in past years. They also aren’t heated. The wooden huts are heated, but they cost an additional $500 per vendor. We’re fortunate to have had the Rasmussen Group of Des Moines sponsor our hut costs the past several years.

A lot of time and energy goes into this market to make it all work. It requires a full day in Des Moines just setting up and decorating, acquiring the rental truck to haul everything, and moving a truck-load of merchandise out of the store to Des Moines. We also have to factor in all of the supplies we need and make sure any technology we rely on over the course of the event is working, including our credit card reader. We also had to gather all of the supplies for gløgg. We offer a nonalcoholic mix for sampling every year. It is always a huge hit and we gave out over 500 samples this year.

With our hygge hut in place, there is still the matter of how to stock it. For a lot of vendors that sell one or similar products, not a lot of space is needed for display. But people who have been in our gift shop know that is just not the case for us. We’ve gotten creative over the years in managing our market space, especially when it comes to utilizing the space outside of the hut itself. In 2022, Shaun identified a couple key places to improve on for the 2023 market. The first was a more organized external display setup which we achieved using the modular shelving built by Shane Schechinger of Next Gen Creations in Harlan, IA. The second was the issue of lighting, which Shaun tackled himself by building two Victorian-style lamp posts that utilized modern, battery-powered lanterns. By addressing both of these problems in 2023, we had more product out on display and shoppers browsing through could actually see everything we had to offer.

For the opening on Thursday night, Shaun and Julie arrived around noon to start setting up the exterior displays and getting the hut ready for the official opening at 5. The market went until 9PM, when vendors are officially allowed to tear down and close up. The new shelving helped with this process, too, as it only took about 30 minutes to get everything back in the hut for the night. The grounds are patrolled by security, but we don’t want to leave anything that can be ruined by snow or rain outside.

The rest of the festival is a marathon. Each day we were outside preparing by 9AM, with the market opening at 11AM (people started trickling in around 10:30). Tami joined the crew on Friday and the three worked constantly the rest of the event from 9AM to 9:30PM. They are long days and the crowd is almost constant. The organizers warned us that they expected 80,000 people this year. We wouldn’t be surprised if they hit that mark. Usually the festival, being outdoors, is very cold and often chilly with wind gusts coming off the river to the east. This year we were fortunate to have milder weather, but it also meant we were busier. Either way, the people were enjoyable and it is always nice to see some familiar faces stop by our booth to show support.

By Sunday evening when the festival ended at 5, we were exhausted. Everything left got put back in the truck and after about 90 minutes emptying the hut and packing up, it was time to make the drive back to Elk Horn.

This event is always very hard work and this year was no different, but the results spoke for themselves and we’re blown away by what we accomplished this year. This year we grossed over $26,000 in sales! To put that in perspective, that’s almost what we did over the entire month of August this year. And it is a full $10,000 jump from what we did last year and $15,000 over the year before. In 30 hours of business, we had over 950 transactions. That is a sale every 2 minutes. Every day was literally nonstop from opening to closing, and we sure felt it as the soreness of standing all day started to kick in by the weekend. It isn’t easy, but it’s always a fun experience.

We cleaned up this year at the awards table, too. Shoppers voted our booth as the Most Authentic and Best Display, and we placed second in People’s Choice. We always had a large crowd, and if our hut wasn’t the brightest it was certainly close.

We’re thankful for the support we’ve received to continue going to this event and we are already excited for next year’s market, projected for December 5 – 8. We’re also thankful for the dedication of our employees who have to push themselves hard to make it through the whole event by themselves without breaks and in the cold. It’s for a good cause. That’s why we do it, and why we can’t wait to go back.

It has been awhile, and as usual there is plenty to catch up on at the windmill. More repairs were made on the windmill. Julefest has come and gone, we had our annual Christmas market in Des Moines, and as of this week our Christmas lights are installed on the windmill’s enormous sails. And we were even awarded another major grant for 2024.

Earlier in November, the windmill lost a shutter, the same one that had broken back in 2020. The repair failed and the brace holding the two flaps together was broken entirely in half, dangling only by a sliver. Since a lift would be required, Shaun used the opportunity to get some extra maintenance done on the windmill before the end of the year. One of the suggestions Erik the millwright made when he was here was to add eyebolts to the fantail blades and frame, so that the mechanism could be securely disabled with a ratchet strap. We also wanted to go through each of the sails and make sure all bolts and fasteners were secure or lubricated as needed. Tim Palmer volunteered his services to help, and together Shaun and Tim spent a couple days modifying the fantail and going through the sails. They fixed a shingle that had come loose, tightened a number of nuts that endlessly varied in size and shape, and lubricated all of the joints of the shutter system to get it operating more smoothly again. Shaun also used the lift to finish wrapping the building in the new ambient lighting that can be seen around the whole millhouse. The high winds made some of the work up on the sails more challenging, but it was good to get some of the maintenance done before winter sets in.

The 2023 Polar Run was held last Saturday morning during Julefest. The weather was cold, but not terrible, and a cheery group of runners made the trek from the Mermaid to the Mill. Logan Moore won the fastest time award with a time of 21:57. Omar Sallak received the award for best costume. We want to extend our sincere thanks to Emily Nelson of Kimballton for volunteering to help administer the run. Unless the Mill can find new volunteers to help with the run next year, this will be the final Polar Run. The rest of Julefest went wonderfully with many of our annual visitors coming into town for the festivities, even in spite of the snowy weather on Saturday. Traffic was noticeably slower this year, but it did enable our visitors to browse the store and tour the windmill without the hassle of battling against any large crowds. This year at the windmill we sampled aebleskiver which many of our visitors had never had before. We would like to thank Sarah McDonald for volunteering to operate two aebleskiver pans for the demonstration.

We would like to take a moment to extend a special thank you to Dick Soll, a regular viewer of our Millcam. We had the windmill turning all throughout Julefest, and Dick noticed one of the shutters didn’t appear to be sitting quite right in position. He called the windmill to let us know and after Shaun inspected the shutter, it became clear the locknut had failed and fallen out. Within a short time, Shaun replaced the nut and the windmill was turning again to the delight of those who braved the weather that day. We always appreciate those in town looking out for us, and we always encourage people to let us know if something doesn’t look quite right.

The windmill staff did well to turn around quickly as we regrouped from Julefest and prepared for the annual Christkindlmarket in Des Moines. Julie, Tami, and Shaun all ran the hut from Thursday evening through Sunday. The weather was mild and the crowd was fierce as the days blurred together into one long 30 hour shift during which our hygge hut had almost 950 transactions. For the math wizards out there, that’s a sale every two minutes! We were quite literally blown away by the turnout this year and we’re excited to aim for an even larger turnout in 2024. Our hut also cleaned up among the event awards, achieving the most votes for “Best Display” and “Most Authentic” while placing 2^nd in “People’s Choice.”

With Christmas just around the corner, it was time to put the lights up. We collaborated with Nate Potts who made sure we had all the materials we needed. Aaron Larsen of Larsen Equipment and Dirk Wasson of Top Hand Tree Service drove a 55’ lift to the windmill last Monday. It was a clear day with little wind, and although the windmill was supposed to be facing West that day, Shaun had to turn it manually from East to West to make sure the crew had good access to the sails. A 55’ lift is enough to reach the centerpoint, but not the top, so the guys strapped lights on one sail at a time while Shaun and Nate manually turned the sails along until all four were lit. We want to thank Nate, Dirk, and Aaron for their assistance in keeping this tradition alive in Tom Potts’s memory. We also want to thank Mike & Lou Howard for their generosity in making this possible.

We’re also thrilled to announce that the windmill has been awarded $6,900.00 from the Iowa Tourism office for the Iowa Tourism FY2024 grant cycle. This money will go towards an extensive marketing campaign via Reagan Outdoor Advertising which includes geofencing, targeted digital ads, and poster floods (small billboards) that will all be coordinated around seasonal tourism, Tivoli Fest, and Julefest. We will have 5 smaller billboards in the local area for Tivoli Fest and 3 for Julefest to further encourage patrons to come experience the Danish Villages at their best. We’re excited for this opportunity to breathe some need innovation and freshness to our marketing strategies and look forward to working with other local organizations and businesses to further enhance these projects next year.

But we aren’t out of the woods yet. We want to express our assurance that our annual appeal for donations will be going out soon. It took a considerable amount of time to receive the necessary reports from MøllebyggerPetersen ApS for the work we aim to have done within the next two years, and by then, the chaos of the holidays had already set in. We are working to turn around and get this information out to all of you as soon as we can, but we still welcome donations of all amounts in the meantime. As busy as the gift shop always seems, and as hard as our staff works year long, the revenue alone is not enough to keep our doors open, and without the generosity of those who have donated to us over the years, we would not still be here. As fun and exciting as capital campaigns are, especially with our 50^th anniversary just around the corner, our priority is and will remain closing the remaining gap of our annual operations cost, which is still quite large.

Finally, please join us in thanking all of our staff for what is projected to be an incredible year. They have done everything asked of them to keep everything running as smoothly as possible, working long hours and weekends to keep the Mill open to locals and visitors. We owe it all to their unrelenting dedication and passion for the windmill, and by extension our town. Thank you, sincerely, to Faye & Cloid Farley, Joanne Greving, Phyllis Hoegh, Tami Jacobsen, and Julie Nelson.