Monday, March 19, 2007
Boston Knit-Out -- 2007 gets underway
Below is what I sent to the announcement group for the Boston Knit-Out at Yahoo Groups just now. If you have any interest, please come join. Yeah, that last line is corny, but it gets the point across.
We had the annual Board meeting tonight.
Permit applications were due to the Parks Department March 1st, so we're rushing to get that in within the next couple days. It was decided to ask for September 30th as first choice, with a second choice of September 23rd. Susan Baker has handled this for a number of years, but business pressures keep her from being able to do it this year. I agreed to get the process started and we'll see what help is needed over the summer as the permit moves through the process.
If these dates are a conflict for a large number of people, please let us know now!
If prior experience is a guide, we can expect an indication from the Parks Department as to which date we get in late May/early June, with formal approval following a few weeks after.
Last fall, we had a tentative commitment for Jill Eaton to be our featured speaker this year, and we need to confirm with her that she's available.
Lucy Lee, after serving for two years in succession, has resigned as President as she announced she would last Fall. As of now, we have no volunteers to the position.
Since the organization attained nonprofit status only in August of last year, this year we can solicit donations from the start and will we need them. We're starting the year with a small positive balance but there will be expenses coming soon that will eat into that and we'll have the big whump of expenses as we need to pay for permits, postage, printing, phone calls, t-shirts and other things we sell to raise money, tents, chairs, porta-potties, rangers and who-knows-what to put on an event this size. Peg Buckman has prior experience fundraising for non-profit organizations and has volunteered to lead a fundraising committee to ask for donations from both businesses and individuals. Many thanks, Peg, for bringing your skills.
April 23rd will be the first planning meeting for the things we can get started on ahead of date approval. Several people are working on finding a meeting space for the season that will give us access after business hours and have space for group discussion. We'll send an announcement of firm place and exact time when we've got it lined up.
If you'd like to be part of the planning, please come forward. Right off, we need folks skilled in PR/publicity (work over the summer to get word out in the knitting community and general media) and a volunteer coordinator (i.e., recruit and organize the folks in the neon t-shirts who do alot of work that day on the Common). There will be other coordinator positions open as we check with past people to see if they can do it this year. If you can't spare the time to come to meetings, but can give hours over the summer to help with things that need to be done, please let us know that, too. There are many stitches needed to put together a Knit-Out.
Thanks!
Permit applications were due to the Parks Department March 1st, so we're rushing to get that in within the next couple days. It was decided to ask for September 30th as first choice, with a second choice of September 23rd. Susan Baker has handled this for a number of years, but business pressures keep her from being able to do it this year. I agreed to get the process started and we'll see what help is needed over the summer as the permit moves through the process.
If these dates are a conflict for a large number of people, please let us know now!
If prior experience is a guide, we can expect an indication from the Parks Department as to which date we get in late May/early June, with formal approval following a few weeks after.
Last fall, we had a tentative commitment for Jill Eaton to be our featured speaker this year, and we need to confirm with her that she's available.
Lucy Lee, after serving for two years in succession, has resigned as President as she announced she would last Fall. As of now, we have no volunteers to the position.
Since the organization attained nonprofit status only in August of last year, this year we can solicit donations from the start and will we need them. We're starting the year with a small positive balance but there will be expenses coming soon that will eat into that and we'll have the big whump of expenses as we need to pay for permits, postage, printing, phone calls, t-shirts and other things we sell to raise money, tents, chairs, porta-potties, rangers and who-knows-what to put on an event this size. Peg Buckman has prior experience fundraising for non-profit organizations and has volunteered to lead a fundraising committee to ask for donations from both businesses and individuals. Many thanks, Peg, for bringing your skills.
April 23rd will be the first planning meeting for the things we can get started on ahead of date approval. Several people are working on finding a meeting space for the season that will give us access after business hours and have space for group discussion. We'll send an announcement of firm place and exact time when we've got it lined up.
If you'd like to be part of the planning, please come forward. Right off, we need folks skilled in PR/publicity (work over the summer to get word out in the knitting community and general media) and a volunteer coordinator (i.e., recruit and organize the folks in the neon t-shirts who do alot of work that day on the Common). There will be other coordinator positions open as we check with past people to see if they can do it this year. If you can't spare the time to come to meetings, but can give hours over the summer to help with things that need to be done, please let us know that, too. There are many stitches needed to put together a Knit-Out.
Thanks!
