[Cadre-politics] status: Parker 2007

[Dan MacNeil]

Andy's (51 Market St) lends a certain useful perspective to my
status reporting. Especially on the first Thursday of the month
which is "Spoken Word open mike night"

As I started this status report, there was a guy barking like a 
dog "Art! Art! Art!", He was (considering the difficulty of his 
medium) pretty good. The crowd certainly dug it.

Anyway, we've all been waiting for news from the Parker Foundation.

Yesterday afternoon, I talked to Phil Hall. We weren't funded 
this round. Phil will (CC'd) correct me if I err, but the quick
strong/weak points of our application:

Strong:
	We are unique, nobody is doing what
	we do.

	There is a need for what we do.

	Many strong letters, calls and emails
	of support from Parker fundees who
	value what we do.

Weak:
	Not a compelling business plan

	Not a conventional organization

	Funding #2 guy before #1

Before I talked to Phil I talked to one of our best customers,
supporters and a avid reader of Cadre-Politics. Our friend
advised me to ask Phil about applying for funding in the next
round instead of waiting the year Parker usually requires between
unfunded requests.

I was psyching up to ask, when Phil suggested that such an
earlier application might be possible. Moreover, Phil volunteered
he'd talk with our friends at Jericho Road and with his friends 
at 3rd Sector New England about getting a better business plan 
together.

We are not a conventional organization and that is probably part
of our success. I'm going to need a few more rounds of tutoring
to completely understand what we need to lose to move forward and
what needs a little chrome plating so we can hide it and keep it.

All of us are disappointed, especially Josh who will have to
abrade a few  more millimeters of his soul at his cushy well paid
corporate job, and __ who will wait a bit longer for her server 
and reliable backups.

All of us, (especially those of us who played violent high school
sports) are tired of Vaseline on the teeth [1], inspirational 
cliches.

	[1] http://www.wikihow.com/Have-Spirit-in-Cheerleading

So, of that, not so much.

If the poetry dawg didn't lighten the now slightly darker bits
of your soul, consider a donation at:

	http://thecsl.org/go/donate/

No worries if you don't have the full $50,000 we wanted from this 
round of Parker funding. We'd not have gotten as far as we did 
without your tech problems, letters and calls of support, hard 
work, prayers and (from you secular humorists) good vibrations.

Thank you, you've done a lot.

There is no crises. Our low, low overhead and Eric Bryant's hard 
work will keep us in the game, but we're better off with your 
spare money than we are without it.