Taurus 11° (May 1) May Day

As may come as no surprise I have a lot on my plate again today. But, given the amount of headway I’ve made this past week already, I should be in fairly good shape if I just stay focused. The morning starts with putting the festival website into enough order such that sponsors can go there and start to give some moolah. I will then run to Provincetown to do some quick banking. Then I pack for an hour and write through a few of my Haute Astrology 2020 chapter openers, adding some more flavor with each go-round. Then I will send those Pleas to would-be sponsors. Meanwhile I’m going to continue to write blurbs for my NEFA final report. I have to double duty so I’m going to write them directly into the Blague (as I did yesterday). Think of it as a voyeuristic way of knowing what I’ve been up to with a certain project. I need some new board members. I’m thinking Terry Kates. Anyway here are some thoughts for my grant writing

Yes there is. Unfortunately it seems (at this juncture) that it will not include any of the NEFA participants from the Idea Swap or those that appear on the organizations roster. It is an investment we realize for venues and we have been informed by NEFA directors that we didn’t get the full budget we requested because the application didn’t make the grantors swoon; likewise, we assume, that we didn’t exactly wow the venues particiapting in the Idea Swap either. (We will consider this in our next choice for projects for which we might apply for NEFA planning grant.) It is possible that Gravitational Fool is too niche for many presenters (perhaps even too LGBTQ?)—we will never know the reason why NEFA participants were retiscent to work with us or even further discuss the possibility of collaboration. So we will mainly be going off the NEFA grid to find venues throughout New England to tour the piece, mainly targeting those that have a strong LGBTQ community. In the process, we would like to take the opportunity to tell venues who don’t participate in the NEFA organziation and specifically the dual Planning/Tour grants that they should reach out to NEFA and get involved with the organization as it bridges to artists and supports them in their developmental process. We will likely present at Mass MoCA and the MFA, for starters, in the coming months. I’d like to do major community outreach in both instances to LGBTQ groups (Fenway being an obvious choice for MFA) and try to get some major press featured on the piece to add to our promotional packages in the securing of additional venues. And to bridge into New York state, for starters, as the Berkshires and Hudson Valley share much in their experience, and I’ve already had chats with directors at Bard College on that score. I also want to target more urban environment in New England like Lowell, Laurence MA; Providence, New Haven, and other New England centers of higher population.

There seemed for us to be a disconnect between the artist and the work on one side of the equation and the venues that participate in the Idea Swap. Surely that isn’t everyone’s experience, but it was ours. Perhaps NEFA could take a more hands-on approach to matching works they’ve awarded Planning grants and venues where they (NEFA) feel the piece might find success. Perhaps this process already exists but we didn’t have a strong sense of that. Also, next time around we would solicit more advice on how to get a larger grant amount awarded us. Unfortunately, the fact we weren’t fully educated on the requirements of getting the next grant was “our bad”. The directorship (specifially Adrienne Petrillo) was incredibly helpful in the process and I can’t imagine improving on their/her guidance and professionalism which was superb. For a non-brick-and-mortar non-profit like ours, NEFA might want to institute a “buddy system” of sorts that might connect folks like us with lots of energy and no real estate with venues that have the space but no creative/administrative bandwidth, so to create a symbiotic relationship that could spell success for artists and their works in the setting up of a tour. I think more communication and solidarity between venues, too, so that a more “circuit” feel might be established would also be beneficial to everyone involved.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
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