Almost Here!!

It's almost the Big Day! 1 week! 7 days! Less than 177 hours  - and counting - before our first event on Saturday morning!
Will you be there?
1650+ say they will be! 
There'll be plenty to keep people busy all day, too!

10:00 am - Noon : Pre-March Activities: Loosely scheduled events such as Yoga, Face Painting, Kids Activities, Hand-outs, and the first band, Three Bricks Shy,  will play.

Noon - 1:00 pm : At least 3 Key Note Speakers (approx. 20 min. each) to inform and inspire regarding the Monsanto issues. There are rumors of a fourth! It would bring each speaker's time to 15 minutes each, but that just means clearer, more concise speaking. ;-)

1:00 - 1:30+ pm : The MARCH!

1:30 pm - 3:00 pm : Live music by the Walltalkers

There are also rumors of more activities continuing after the 3 PM end time, but I can't say with a certainty.

We will have free non-GMO (GE) heritage seeds available, but there are a limited quantity. We will also have many handouts, factsheets, and other informational brochures available for you to learn more about the subjects discussed and other Monsanto-related and organic issues.

Please join us in this most important event! 

Rollin', Rollin', Rollin'!

Well, personally, it's been a rough couple of weeks - one of those stretches of time you'd like to forget ever happened, but can't. Murphy's Law - anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time - was in full effect around the homestead lately. *sigh*

However, as for what you're actually here to hear about, we have some great updates:

Things are really moving forward in a positive way for the event! We found a group, called Nation Of Change (http://www.nationofchange.org/), that will be having a fundraiser for us in the coming weeks! We have, as of this writing, 1,005 people who said they're going to our event. Add to that the 536 Maybes, and the fact that we have 16,423 invitations out - so far - for this, and we can honestly say this thing is gonna be HUGE! I, personally, am feeling very proud of the Kansas City Metro area!

We had an awesome meeting today, covered several subjects effectively, solved a few problems, and got headed in the correct direction to solve a few more! Some of our volunteers have made some fantastic flyers and posters to bring attention to our cause! You may be seeing some soon, yourself, at your local grocery store or restaurant.

We had not one, but two radio spots recorded - which I'll be sure to link to as soon as I can - and some great footage for putting together a video promoting what this whole thing is about! Some of us can now, after our whole lives, can finally say we've been interviewed on the radio... *grins*

And now, a little food for thought:

Fun and Frustrations

We had a great first meeting, us local organizers. We made some connections, got several ideas discussed, and started forward on many of them! *thumbs up*

• We have a preliminary march route, a secondary one, and ideas to expand it if needed.
• We had (note the ~had~) a great design we'd collaborated on for a t-shirt printing. Several even pre-paid for it. Unfortunately, that fell through... more, later.
• We potentially resolved porta-potty issues (or lack thereof), and will soon hear about that resolution.
• We came up with ideas to tie in several local Farmers' Markets traffic that morning to the event at 1 P.M
• We may have a pretty good sign and banner plan - cross your fingers! 
• We settled on a preliminary date for Meeting #2

And, then....

Last night, I was thinking of ways to grab the younger generations' attention, and thinking the then-current one and only t-shirt design lacked information to grab their attention...

So, I collaborated with my 20 year old son on another potential design, using the previously collaborated-on design we currently had. Came up with a pretty kick-ass design, we thought. Posted it for the other organizers/collaborators to see. And called it a night.

Came back to the group about noon to discover that was not a good idea, after all - the drama which ensued was unpleasant, and was not resolved happily, on either side Unfortunate, but it could not be helped, apparently, when egos are involved in a collaboration. So, we lost the original design, as well as the new one, and now have to start over on that part of the project. *sigh*

I learned a lot about how difficult it is to actually build an event of this proportion, and how easily feelings are hurt. Yeah, I may have made a mistake, when looked at from one angle, but from another angle, I was in the right, as well. Hey, we're only human. Lesson learned, moving on...

We're coming out of this particular brush-fire stronger, leaner, and more prepared to face any future difficulties. I hope you out there will all join us in this endeavor to educate each person out there who ~doesn't~ know what evils Monsanto is doing!

How much?

$1 donation $1.00 USD $5 donation $5.00 USD $10 donation $10.00 USD $25 donation $25.00 USD $50 donation $50.00 USD $100 donation $100.00 USD

Cha Ching!

Got confirmation we will be getting our MAM debit card soon! That means you are free to donate as you see fit to this wonderful event!

*happy dance*

To update you:
* We have flyer templates being created
* We have a planning meeting scheduled for this Saturday
* We have learned to put out figurative brush fires :-D
* We are collecting some awesome people to help!

How much?

$1 donation $1.00 USD $5 donation $5.00 USD $10 donation $10.00 USD $25 donation $25.00 USD $50 donation $50.00 USD $100 donation $100.00 USD

Ever Forward! Or, something like that...

Well, here we go! Hoping to get a meeting set up for some of us to talk face to face soon. This weekend is full to overflowing, already, though... so, gonna be next weekend. *sigh*

Until then, what am I doing? Besides going completely stark raving running-screaming-into-the-night mad? LOL, apparently not much! My main partner in this madness is going to check on porta-potties for the event, since we could have a hundred or more folks actually show up, which is a dizzying thought all its own. O.o Plus, we may have a few other folks pitching in as organizers, too, soon - which would be akin to a miracle for us!

Oh, and I DID get this accomplished:

How much?

$1 donation $1.00 USD $5 donation $5.00 USD $10 donation $10.00 USD $25 donation $25.00 USD $50 donation $50.00 USD $100 donation $100.00 USD

Warning - I can't access any donations made until I get either accepted for the business MasterCard I requested or get the prepaid debit card for the account in the mail - so, don't get real generous, yet! ;-)

Getting Out the Word! (And, begging for help!)

On Friday evening, I happened to stumble across an event on Facebook, called March Against Monsanto. A national event page, with listings for several cities across the country. I hunted, and found one for Kansas City, the closest metro area to my humble little farm.
Having been raised in a family who did their gardening organically, as well as living by the "Hillbilly Creed" of "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without," and learning early on the joys of re-purposing and recycling things to avoid waste (mind you, it wasn't called that back then...), and having more recently learned the inherent dangers of tinkering with Mother Nature in any way, I was definitely interested.

I clicked on the link for KC, and, lo and behold, not a single local person had stepped up to be a host. Well, that would never do! So, I contacted a few friends, the main one of which had done as little event organizing as I have (read ZERO), and we jumped in, headfirst. From that humble beginnings, and a whopping dozen or less "going" listed that evening, the event has grown - over a holiday weekend, no less - to well over 300 listed as "going" this evening!

My friend and I soon discovered that event organization is not the proverbial walk in the park. But, we did manage to pick out a suitable park for the event start/end point, at least, and get it reserved for the event day! We've seen and received many suggestions, some awesome, some silly, and some downright unsuitable, for the event, and what should be done. We've slowly gathered or created suitable graphics for the event, and tiptoed (or blundered) through a few rough spots already, people-wise But, we've also discovered we may need a LOT more help than we'd initially thought we'd need. So if I come on here blubbering next time, you'll know what for. :-D

Next task - securing support, sponsors, and donations to make this a great event.

*gulp*