status: Parker 2007

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.