in which networking is loved by me, and also it is my 22nd birthday
I love networking.
Yesterday (5 minutes ago, as of my typing now) a good chunk of what I've been planning for all summer finally started becoming visible. The 2Seeds Online Auction is up and open to the public. I procured 7 of those lots (the fabulous Maryland Avenue gift card bundle, a Giclee print of a painting by my uncle, a case of white wine, sweet arts & crafts books, cooking/coffee table/etc. books, an Annebeth's gift certificate, and the Read or Die movie and the Read or Dream DVD set); I'm also waiting on two more from Maureen. I was definitely worried about finding items, but people were really generous. :D I also had the idea to make the auction a facebook event, so I've been working on setting that up for the past two days.
And then I spent even more time on facebook worrying about logistics (who has a car? who needs a ride?) and making a sweet logo/graphic thing for the facebook event advertising our benefit swing dance! I am SO HAPPY this is finally getting underway.
I forget if I mentioned it here, but I'd asked Craig and Susanne (the local Gottaswing representatives, who run a swing dance every Friday night in Eastport) if they could give Josh and I advice on running a swing dance event as a fundraiser. They asked us a few clarifying questions and then told us that the first thing to do was find a venue, whereupon we chased after venues high and low, trying to find someone that would rent to us for less than we could reasonably expect to make. Turns out that people don't really want to give away space, even if you are a nonprofit. :/ St. Martins-in-the-Field would have given us the parishioner's rate ($200) but right about the time we heard back from them, Susanne surprised me by saying that they'd talked with the Gottaswing higher-ups, and they'd be willing to give us a significant percentage of the profits from the dance they were going to hold in Severna Park on July 23rd.
Suddenly, everything was done for the dance except the advertising! We didn't have to find a venue, book a band, figure out refreshments, or anything! So on the one hand, I'll have slightly less experience with event planning than I would have, but on the other hand, it's a pretty generous offer and much less risky than trying to run the whole show ourselves, especially since we were starting to be pressed for time. We just got all the official percentages, projected number of attendees, etc. two days ago, so in hindsight we might have been able to run the whole thing ourselves for approximately $60 cheaper than Gottaswing, especially if we didn't have food/got it donated. But we had to make the decision with clock ticking, before we had super-specific numbers, and I think that the built-in attendees (and increased exposure) we can get by working with an already-established group will be better for us in the long run than just inviting from the pool of people we already know. Now we get strangers and friends, which is my favorite kind of party anyway. :D
...anyway, when I started this entry I had just gotten back from the Friday night dance, where the benefit dance and my role in it was announced. It was a good crowd, since it's the second Friday of the month, which is always when they celebrate that month's birthdays with a jam for the birthday people and a cake for everyone. Susanne asked me what kind of cake I wanted, since my birthday is today, and I said hazelnut, so we had a delicious hazelnut cake. It was so soft and spongy!
Anyway, a lot of the regulars know me now, and I make a point of dancing with as many leads as possible and talking to as many people as I can, so I had met a fair bit of the newcomers that night, too. After the announcement and my horrifically nervous spiel that didn't really say much about the organization or my goals, but did use the word 'penultimate' to great acclaim, two people I've never really talked with before- one a semi-regular, one a newbie- came up to me and asked me for details on what I was doing. I spent some time talking to both of them, gave them each one of my hand-made 2Seeds business cards, and then at the end of the night they asked how they could donate!
I love love love networking. This is what I want to do in life- get people I've just met informed and excited about things that are worth the fuss, and then involve them with me in those things. Seriously, those two people wanting to help- unprompted by me- was the best birthday present ever.
Yesterday (5 minutes ago, as of my typing now) a good chunk of what I've been planning for all summer finally started becoming visible. The 2Seeds Online Auction is up and open to the public. I procured 7 of those lots (the fabulous Maryland Avenue gift card bundle, a Giclee print of a painting by my uncle, a case of white wine, sweet arts & crafts books, cooking/coffee table/etc. books, an Annebeth's gift certificate, and the Read or Die movie and the Read or Dream DVD set); I'm also waiting on two more from Maureen. I was definitely worried about finding items, but people were really generous. :D I also had the idea to make the auction a facebook event, so I've been working on setting that up for the past two days.
And then I spent even more time on facebook worrying about logistics (who has a car? who needs a ride?) and making a sweet logo/graphic thing for the facebook event advertising our benefit swing dance! I am SO HAPPY this is finally getting underway.
I forget if I mentioned it here, but I'd asked Craig and Susanne (the local Gottaswing representatives, who run a swing dance every Friday night in Eastport) if they could give Josh and I advice on running a swing dance event as a fundraiser. They asked us a few clarifying questions and then told us that the first thing to do was find a venue, whereupon we chased after venues high and low, trying to find someone that would rent to us for less than we could reasonably expect to make. Turns out that people don't really want to give away space, even if you are a nonprofit. :/ St. Martins-in-the-Field would have given us the parishioner's rate ($200) but right about the time we heard back from them, Susanne surprised me by saying that they'd talked with the Gottaswing higher-ups, and they'd be willing to give us a significant percentage of the profits from the dance they were going to hold in Severna Park on July 23rd.
Suddenly, everything was done for the dance except the advertising! We didn't have to find a venue, book a band, figure out refreshments, or anything! So on the one hand, I'll have slightly less experience with event planning than I would have, but on the other hand, it's a pretty generous offer and much less risky than trying to run the whole show ourselves, especially since we were starting to be pressed for time. We just got all the official percentages, projected number of attendees, etc. two days ago, so in hindsight we might have been able to run the whole thing ourselves for approximately $60 cheaper than Gottaswing, especially if we didn't have food/got it donated. But we had to make the decision with clock ticking, before we had super-specific numbers, and I think that the built-in attendees (and increased exposure) we can get by working with an already-established group will be better for us in the long run than just inviting from the pool of people we already know. Now we get strangers and friends, which is my favorite kind of party anyway. :D
...anyway, when I started this entry I had just gotten back from the Friday night dance, where the benefit dance and my role in it was announced. It was a good crowd, since it's the second Friday of the month, which is always when they celebrate that month's birthdays with a jam for the birthday people and a cake for everyone. Susanne asked me what kind of cake I wanted, since my birthday is today, and I said hazelnut, so we had a delicious hazelnut cake. It was so soft and spongy!
Anyway, a lot of the regulars know me now, and I make a point of dancing with as many leads as possible and talking to as many people as I can, so I had met a fair bit of the newcomers that night, too. After the announcement and my horrifically nervous spiel that didn't really say much about the organization or my goals, but did use the word 'penultimate' to great acclaim, two people I've never really talked with before- one a semi-regular, one a newbie- came up to me and asked me for details on what I was doing. I spent some time talking to both of them, gave them each one of my hand-made 2Seeds business cards, and then at the end of the night they asked how they could donate!
I love love love networking. This is what I want to do in life- get people I've just met informed and excited about things that are worth the fuss, and then involve them with me in those things. Seriously, those two people wanting to help- unprompted by me- was the best birthday present ever.