Informal Feasibility Study!

[featherynscale]

I thought about having this locked down to just the KC folks, but what the hell, some of the rest of you might be interested, too.

Here's the deal: Every year, forever, the Gaia Community has done an arts-and-crafts show (the Winter Bazaar, if you've been following along) as a winter fund-raiser. Every year, we make about $1000 on this event. We have put a lot of work into making it bigger and better, which means that we make more money every year, but it also costs more money (and more time) every year, leaving us with a steady profit of, yep, $1000. Getting volunteers to assist with the thing is difficult, getting someone to manage the thing is nigh impossible. Attendance is generally poor. So I'm thinking, this sucks, let's not do it anymore. If we don't do it, we need to come up with some other fund-raising concept that will make at least $1000 profit for the organization.

zylch and I spent some time this evening kicking around the idea of having a Yule Ball, some sort of reasonably upscale (but not obnoxiously upscale) costume and/or fancy dress party experience instead. There would be music and dancing and probably food, and possibly a silent auction and/or raffle. It would be a holiday party that you could take your significant other(s) to, regardless of gender, number, or preferred lifestyle arrangement. It would have a magical theme (possibly but not necessarily something Harry-Potter-ish). There is every possibility that there would be games and/or some sort of participatory art experience. There would be a door charge, previously mentioned silent auction/raffle, and possibly sales of non-alcoholic beverages (because we probably can't get a liquor license).

The thing is, we've not done an event like this. I have no sense at all of whether there would be enough interest in it to make it work or not. Hence, a preliminary investigation, very unofficial. Feel free to comment further on the concept. (Also, if you really love the Winter Bazaar, feel free to defend its continued existence. Nothing's been decided yet at all.)

[Poll #1241479]

Comments

[popefelix.livejournal.com]

first answer! w00t!

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Why? Why must you do this? Can't you see you're contributing to the breakdown and ultimate cancellation of this feed? I come here to read the comic and the wonderful, intellectual discussion that goes on about its content, not ridiculous, junior high style, copy-pasted references to female anatomy.

[pwned-kisa.livejournal.com]

**sad kitten mew** I'm so confused. There is no reference to female anatomy... and... what is the Gaia Community? Is it like Gaia Online?

[kaymyth.livejournal.com]

It's our wacky UU church-place of awesome funs.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I was just noting that popefelix came in, claimed first comment, and in the poll question, said "BOOBIES!". The reply text is a regularly occurring post on xkcd_rss, where the first poster, referencing an Ancient and Venerable Internet tradition, always used to say "BOOBIES!". The reply I gave is the ritual reply (now often posted by the same poster who made the initial BOOBIES! post), and there are several other usual posts that follow. So no, in short, it makes no sense at all. :)

Gaia Community (http://www.gaiacommunity.org) is my church. :)

in answer to the second question

[popefelix.livejournal.com]

It is not like Gaia Online. Notable differences include the fact that we meet in person for the most part, and not online, and our lack of an entry in the Encyclopaedia Dramatica.

Re: in answer to the second question

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Aye, and let's not earn one by being jerky about how other people like to have their fun, please. :-P

Re: in answer to the second question

[popefelix.livejournal.com]

My bad. I'd been reading ED - I think it rubbed off a little.

Re: in answer to the second question

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

S'all good. I also am willing to admit that I may be a little sensitive with regard to talking about the church. :/

Re: in answer to the second question

[popefelix.livejournal.com]

No worries.

[royal-spice.livejournal.com]

I've been part of the organization of a Samhain Ball before, and have a couple of thoughts/suggestions.

1) The booze: usually such events can get around this by being hosted in a hotel ballroom; the hotel has a bar. If you're having it at the church, prolly not. And, y'know, that's ok--most of the problems at these kind of events can be traced back to booze. ;)

2) Money-making: Vendors! Tarot readers! Massage! Reiki! Raffle! Merchant it up.

3) Price suggestion: $20 single, $30 couple, $40 multi-member household or family.

4) The Samhain ball I worked with (as a vendor assist one year, as a ritualist and assisting with organization another year) had as part of the experience a ritual that was led by a single pagan group one year, and cooperatively performed by the priests and priestesses of various community groups another year. I like the 2nd idea, but the first one was more "seamless".

5) Good Luck.

[margaretq.livejournal.com]

Those prices are quite managable for everyone.

[stregalunae.livejournal.com]

I'm the out of towner... if you manage to make it while I'll be in town I'd definitely come.

[auraseer.livejournal.com]

For the St. Louis Witches Ball they just rent out a ballroom. There's a buffet, open bar, live DJ and dance floor, etc, and the organizers don't have to worry about manning it all themselves.

Tickets to that run $30 each, or $55 for a couple, which I believe includes a decent profit margin. They also have a silent auction and raffle, from which they donate half the proceeds to another charity. (The other half goes to help fund Pagan Picnic.) There have been two so far, and they've completely sold out of tickets each time, making a very good turnout for this town.

Their dress code is "upscale attire required, masks optional."

If you like, I could put you in contact with the people who organize the thing, so you can ask them for more details.

[greektoomey.livejournal.com]

OH HAI I AM < SOBER BUT I MIGHT RESPOND SOBRIETOUSLY TOMORROW IF I REMEMBER LOL HAHAH. U RAWK AND I WOULD HAEMMHORAGE CASH FOR YOUR PARTAY IF I WAS WELCOME BUT I AM DRUNK NOW SO I WILL JUST SAY JESUS CHRIST ITS A LION GET IN THE CAR!

Your indulgence is appreciated.

[leiandra.livejournal.com]

I will preface my answers with "If I lived in the greater KC area". Sounds like a fun idea though.

Strong supporter of Bazaar

[lilia-blackbear.livejournal.com]

If there were a way for GC to hold two big fundraisers a year, I'd be for a Ball as well as a Bazaar. But, I do not think that is plausible. But the Bazaar cannot be judged for the past two years.

1) 2005 -- horrible location (However, my booth did great.)
2) 2006 -- horrible weather (why I love the idea of a Harvest Bazaar)
3) Recently -- the economy sucks (this would not prevent people from buying a ticket to a ball?)

Personally, I love the Bazaar because it is different. How many Pagan organizations have Samhain Balls/Yule Balls? It's almost cliche. With a Bazaar, we are melding Paganism with traditional churchism -- just as we bring Pagans together into a congregation every Sunday.

This is not to say I am against change -- not at all. For the last two years, the Bazaar has been Not Great. Perhaps we need to figure out a better solution for it instead of throwing it overboard.

Re: Strong supporter of Bazaar

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I am open to Better Solutions, particularly the sort that come with suggestions and volunteering. :) The event needs a steady location and strong community involvement, and right now it's got neither. The steady location problem I think we have solved, but we have next to no community involvement anymore. The typical lifespan of a fund-raiser is about 7 years before interest wanes, according to the professionals I've talked to; I suspect the Bazaar may just be past its prime. I'm interested to hear if there are other people out there who really want to still have the thing, though.

Re: Strong supporter of Bazaar

[lilia-blackbear.livejournal.com]

I've seen a few comments here about having a big ball, with vending and the whole lot -- that would be something I would support. It's just, a celebrating night of dancing and costuming does not reach everyone -- but that would be impossible, to find something, especially in our little ecclectic church, to reach everyone.

Last year, adding the live entertainment into the Bazaar was great, I thought, changed things up.

The typical lifespan of a fund-raiser is about 7 years before interest wanes, according to the professionals I've talked to
Just to play the Devil's Advocate here, that's interesting considering the amount of years Girl Scouts have been selling cookies, Boy Scouts selling popcorn, Jerry's Kids telethons, and the countless school and church socials every Fall and Spring. Is the 7 years of an interest waning actually community interest in something, or coordinator burn out, or both?

Re: Strong supporter of Bazaar

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm suspicious of the 7-year figure. Median, mean? What sample set? Many fundraisers crash and burn after 1 year, so that would drag the average right down...

Re: Strong supporter of Bazaar

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I have no data to back it up. I'm working off of conversations with a handful of people who raise money for non-profits for a living. I do know that they're not counting things that totally fail the first few times, they're talking about things that do well for the organizations that the orgs then want to hang on to for far longer than their useful lifespans.

Re: Strong supporter of Bazaar

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

The point of the fund-raiser in question hopefully would not be just to reach the people in our little eclectic church and ask them for money, but to also show off our little church to other people who might be interested in joining us, and getting some funding and support from outside the pool of 40 people who always pay for everything.

I totally support having a Bazaar with live entertainment, if we're going to do a Bazaar. I also totally support having a party with vendors and whatnot, if we're going to do a party.

Usually, the event lifespan seems to be due to boring the donor base (or making them complacent - Oh, I don't have to go to that this year, there will be another one next year). You'll notice that the Girl Scouts in the cookie sales model a) have a very wide donor base that constantly changes and b) switch out their cookie brands (except for a few 'favorites') every few years. Yes, they're still selling cookies, but they're selling different cookies to different people. We have tried to switch up the Bazaar (and, as you mention, some of it has been good) to keep it fresh, but attendance and community interest seems to decline every year.

(I don't totally hate the Bazaar. I, too, make money at the Bazaar, but the last two years, I've only been making it from people that I already see socially and could have sold to without the intermediary of the event.)

[dramaticaddict.livejournal.com]

When it comes to the bazaar, I would like to point out the only way I've ever known when it is is livejournal, and the monthly newsletter. Maybe some better advertising? good advertising doenst have to cost anything, i mean, every grocery store in the metro has an events board of some sort, that crafty people love to look at, also, try throwin it up on craigslist and such.
I totally think you should do both, but thats just me prolly....

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

See, we do that stuff. We put it out on all the local/regional pagan lists, on Witchvox, on craigslist, on the kc livejournal and so on. We make fliers and distribute them to the vendors to hand out to their people, and to people in the congregation to take around to places like grocery stores, bookstores, libraries, coffee shops, pagan shops, and so on. We also try to get it on radio (where we can do so for free) and in the paper (again, where we can do so for free/cheap).

Except that people used to get really involved in that process, and we'd put out 1500 fliers for the event. The last few times, nobody's wanted to take the fliers or do much of anything to support the event, which is why I think it's time to retire it.

[margaretq.livejournal.com]

Well, you'll have to give me a buzz. I can write a press release and get it out to a local media list.. Just shhhh...

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

I love that. :)

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm going to be the odd man out: I don't think the problem is the Bazaar.

I mean, it's a complex, labor-intensive, expensive event that requires rented space and up-front costs. It also benefits from prior history, publicity, and outside monies.

A masquerade/ball is a complex, labor-intensive, expensive event that requires rented space and up-front costs. It also benefits from prior history, publicity, and outside monies.

We've not done the WB justice in recent years. Internal organization has been spotty; volunteer recruitment has been tough. Publicity and vendor management has been significantly less well-handled than before. The venue has changed repeatedly. The date and time have changed repeatedly. I'm not sure we can look at all of that and say "this event that maintains a constant profit and increasing income is not working". Is it more trouble than it's worth? Maybe.

But I think the problem is rooted somewhere else. We can't get people to go to Games Night, for gods' sake! Look at ALL of our non-Sunday activities. Are any of them thriving? RFB is getting marginally more people than it used to, but otherwise, I'm seeing across-the-board failures, as far as attendance and enthusiasm go. Sunday attendance is flat or declining. The volunteer base is essentially flat. Income is...weird, I can't track or map it effectively right now, but it worries me.

I know that Stewardship needs to make a decision about the fall/winter fundraiser, because if we DO have the Bazaar, publicity should go out to KCRF. But additionally, I want to try to ask the congregation for feedback again. Maybe a survey in the Sept. EH and Greeter's Table. Will try working on that when I get a minute, and would like your help.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

If we're going to do any sort of Fall/Winter fundraiser, the basic logistical stuff really needs to be in place by the end of August. WB vendors in past years were asking for end-of-August notification for a December event, so I think we ought to make a strong effort to get end-of-August notification for a mid-November event, you know?

You're right about the overall trend. Either everybody's too busy to do anything at all, or nobody gives a shit anymore, or nobody knows when anything's happening (which I think would likely be related to nobody gives a shit anymore, because the information is out there in all the same places it always has been).

It seemed to me that offering up something that was new and perhaps even sounded like fun instead of sounding like work would get some people engaged and energized. I could well be wrong, though.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

And I could just be cranky.

[featherynscale.livejournal.com]

Good enough. :)
I know I am. I'm spending the day re-doing some Extremely Tedious Excel work, because the techs changed the server backup routine and didn't tell anybody. Consequently, my PC shut down Weds. evening instead of Thurs. evening. I'm used to saving everything off and shutting down on Thursdays.... GRARG.

[triadruid.livejournal.com]

Oi. Excel didn't autosave?

Our update cycle is Wednesday evenings, too. I can mostly remember that, anymore...

[dop4.livejournal.com]

Betwixt & Between Community Center in Dallas tried this once. They did a "Frost Ball" in Dec '04 it was a lot of fun - but I think they just barely broke even.
Problem with any new fundraiser, is that the 1st time you do it - it not going to be as lucrative as when you do again - as you'll have worked out the bugs and found cheaper ways to do some of it.
(Look at the God Auction as an example of this.)

[celticwhistlin.livejournal.com]

I too had batted around the idea of a Ball/Party/Dance/Fundraiser of sorts just last week with cerrunos.

Not so much as a replacement of WB but of a *new/shiny* thing to do next year. It actually stemmed from a picture I saw of a fashion show for cats that benefited an animal shelter. People were shelling out $10 a glass for alcohol, they had a dinner and a fashion show.

What about a dinner? A cook off? Part bazaar, part party, part raffle. We have always seemed to do better for a raffle than actually *selling* stuff. If we can get most of the stuff donated (I'm talking from places like Target/Kohls/Price Chopper/Hen House/Etc.) then we aren't tapping other pagans or ourselves. That's how we do it for Feed the Need at work.

[margaretq.livejournal.com]

I change my answer. live trance dancing/free form/movement dancing would be an event maker (just hard to find). And popefelix's answer... well, that'd get me there too.

[margaretq.livejournal.com]

I am new to the area and not exactly part of the community - so pls feel free to ignore my contribution.
A ball with a lot of different elements and vendors that didn't happen right during the holiday season (I may not be Christian by any stretch, but there are work and family obligations...)-- esp in the middle of late Jan/early Feb (when we are all over holidays and in the midst of winter) would attract me.

[margaretq.livejournal.com]

And due to those holiday commitments my time and, most importantly, my budget is not flexible. I'm also not in the mood to add more to that timeframe schedule-wise. But, by late Jan/early feb the holidays are gone from memory and early birds like me are beginning to anticipate tax refunds...

[lexpendragon.livejournal.com]

I ran one of these, with the pagan charity I used to be a part of, we called it the Solstice Social. It's work, and I don't think we made a lot of money at it, but Pittsburgh also doesn't do well with it's Witches Ball.

The best fund raising I've seen so far was simply putting a basket in a high traffic area, staffing it with someone attractive, and adding a sign that says 'Please give us your money'. That, or tips going along with Booze.