Volunteer Log 2014

For those curious to what organizations that I've volunteer for during the 2014 year, this is the listing of them.  I am a small cog in a very large machine.

I don't post this to brag, only to remember.  It is my own unique brand of insanity.  I do this stuff because I like helping out.  It gives me claim to being able to say that I've worked at: art shows, concerts, parades, cookoffs, beer festivals, fundraisers, STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math), around robots, and at the circus.

Done

Art On The Square
Catsup Festival
Circus Flora
Twangfest
FIRST Robotics
KDHX
LouFest
Midwest Salute To The Arts
Midwest Wingfest
Rock 'n' Roll Marathon

Sheldon Concert Hall
St. Louis Earth Day
St. Louis Fringe Festival
St. Louis Heritage Festival
St. Louis International Film Fest

St. Louis Mardi Gras (Parade and Cajun cook off.)
St. Louis Micro Festival
St. Louis Track Club
Strange Folk Festival

Tap N' Run
The Graffiti RunTour de Belleville

Wine, Dine and Jazz

Volunteering and Community

June: so much to say about June.  There was Twangfest for KDHX, St. Louis Heritage Festival, St. Louis Fringe Festival, Wine Dine and Jazz and Circus Flora.  I've also been doing Improv classes at The Improv Shop.  There is a quote on The Improv Shop wall and website by Kurt Vonnegut that goes: "And I would really, over the long run, hope America would find some way to provide all of our citizens with extended families -- a large group of people they could call on for help."  A little girl (4 or 5 years old) giving me a big hug after Circus Flora was over.  The combination of the quote and hug got me thinking that my favorite parts about volunteering and improv and life is the communities.  Communities that in some cases only get to see once a year and others that I can goof around with and be funny with.  Somehow it all makes sense together.  Probably my favorite part of doing any and all of it.  It's one of those things that I want to help push forward and help it grow.  So many communities to try to tie together and I am merely one thread amongst them all.

Volunteer Organization Log for 2013

For those curious to what organizations that I've volunteer for during the 2013 year, this is the listing of them.  I am a small cog in a very large machine.

I don't post this to brag, only to remember.  It is my own unique brand of insanity.  I do this stuff because I like helping out.  It gives me claim to being able to say that I've worked at: art shows, concerts, parades, cookoffs, beer festivals, fundraisers, STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math), around robots, and at the circus.

286.50 volunteer hours and current to August 27, 2013.
321.5 as of September 22, 2013

Art On The Square
Bluesweek
Catsup Festival
Cinema St. Louis International Film Festival
Circus Flora
KDHX and Twangfest
Kiwanis of O'Fallon
FIRST Robotics
LouFest
Midwest Wingfest
Midwest Salute To The Arts
Rock 'n' Roll Marathon 
Sheldon Concert Hall
Strange Folk Festival 
St. Louis Earth Day
St. Louis Fringe Festival
St. Louis Heritage Festival
St. Louis International Film Fest
St. Louis Mardi Gras (Parade and cajun cook off.)
St. Louis Micro Festival
St. Lous St. Patrick's Day 
SGI-USA of St. Louis
Toastmasters
Tour de Belleville

Towel Day, Volunteering, and ISTP

First off: Happy Towel Day!   Particularly for all you Hitchhikers of the Galaxy.

Second this whole volunteer thing is still pretty dern interesting.  I'm always finding events or finally getting around to just signing up for stuff.  Finally signed up for the St. Louis Bluesweek Festival.  I've known about it for a while back when it was the Rib America thing that went all Memorial Day weekend long.  Stuff happened and it became Bluesweek.  I've always been a little torn about volunteering for it in the past few years because I'm always got a boomerang tournament to attend on Memorial Day weekend.  Specifically the Gateway Classic; going on 26 consecutive years thus far.

Anyways the St. Louis Blues week is a good event.  Good music and food.  They still do the whole BBQ and ribs thing.  Tasty for mouth and ears.  Yeah I was working it but I do fit in time to hang out and enjoy stuff.  I probably enjoy it that much more because I'm volunteering for it.

Not really that odd I think.  I am an ISTP.  It's interesting to think about everyonce and a while to think about the whole Brigs Meyers personality things sometimes.  Sure they are generic and cover lots of people like horoscope.  I do think I fit in with the various descriptions of the ISTP (link and other link and another other link) out there.  I'm an adventurer that likes to tinker and understand enough for me to get good at doing stuff.  But also don't like getting stuck into routines and following strict rules.

 But it's late and I probably should proof read but I just wanted to get it out there.

Brief Volunteer Commentary

Just realizing that with all the volunteering that I do, I need to find a way to scout out other opportunities that happen to a rise on a yearly basis.  For instance, I just found out about the St. Louis Comic Con today.  If I would of known about it a month ago I would of signed up forever ago.  I've signed up but with a few days to the event, who knows if I'll get tagged up for it.   Not much to do except roll with it and be prepared next year.  Sometimes volunteering you hear about stuff way to late.  It's the hearing about it that matters the most.  

It's the hearing about stuff way to late that I need to fix.  I shouldn't be missing interesting stuff like Comic Con.  I blame myself for it.  I have been assuming that things like it only happen in California or something.  It's okay, I'll survive.  I'm gonna have to dig around a whole lot harder for some of these events.

If your interested in the event sign up for it.  May have to search around a bit on your own to find out where to sign up but it'll be worth it.   If you happen to know of anything interesting that happens to need volunteers, especially in the St. Louis area,  let me know down in the comments.  Otherwise Volunteer on and keep rocking.

I've also gotten a chance to cruse around St. Louis on a golf cart this past weekend for St. Patrick's Day parade festivities.  Pretty sweet event with one of the few events with a 5 MILE run prior to the parade.

April is shaping up to involve a KDHX phone drive (please show your support at KDHX.org), St. Louis  Earth Day, and FIRST Robotics World Championships.  Their is also the St. Louis MicroFest at the beginning of May.  Check them all out.  They are all interesting events in the St. Louis Area.

KDHX's Art Attack 4

 Got to hang out at KDHX's Art Attack 4 this past weekend.  It was a pretty neat event.  It put up 32 local artists head to head against each other.  The popular paintings got to move on while the losers got to be auctioned off for KDHX.  The even bigger losers paintings that did not get to the threshold bid amount got brutally destroyed by the wheel of destruction.

Some Photos of Summer/Fall 2012 (Part 2)

More photos of stuff that I did this summer. First one is from one of the Thursday's at the Intersection out in front of The Fox.  JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound were the main act for this concert.  The concert also doubled as a fairwell party for one of the KDHX directors.  It's not to far off from Circus Flora that I've mentioned before in other posts.  

KDHX Fall 2012 Membership Drive

Helped out with the KDHX membership drive this past weekend.  If you haven't donated yet, you should.  KDHX plays such a wide variety of music that you are guaranteed to find something you like on there.  You want electronic, you got Beep Beep, Boop Boop on Wednesday nights from 9pm to 11pm.  You want blues, you got:  Soul Selector,  Blursday,  Blues in the Night to name a very few. International music:  Radio Rio,  Folks of the World, or  Reggae Reunion.  Check out the show schedule.  There is so much to explore at KDHX.

Seriously check out the show schedule page and find some great music.  There is seriously lots of good stuff there.  If you can't afford to send in money but happen to be be in St. Louis, you can volunteer with the station and do lots of cool stuff there.  

Balloons, Peanuts, Jazz, and Sound Cloud

2nd weekend of selling peanuts for the Kiwanis but also made balloon animals for the kids.  Pretty good times.  Still much to learn in terms of making art with balloons.

Helped out at the  U City Jazz Festival with KDHX.  Overall a good event for it's second year.  Lots of jazz to be had there and giving out stickers.  Just needed a few more food vendors and lights at sunset.

Also can't forget to listen to Sound Cloud.  You should listen to the KDHX Sound Cloud Page.  Lots of hardworking people uploading 25 years worth of live performances recorded at the KDHX studio/station.

I'm up to 275.5 hours of volunteering.  It's not about numbers but still interesting number.

Art, Tie Dye, LouFest, and Running Totals

Busy weekend over August 24-26, 2012.  Hung out at the Midwest Salute To The Arts, The Shanti & KDHX Tie Dye Fundraiser, and LouFest.  Pretty neat.  Got to help out artists on Friday and Sunday and talk with them.  Got to meet a neat lady that makes didgeridoos.  Also tore down the event and consolidated rental equipment and electrical cords.

The Shanti and KDHX tie dye event was cool.  Got to tie dye a few shirts for other volunteer events.  Turned out pretty well.  Pretty simple process of scrunching up your shirt and wrapping rubber bands where you want them.  It's kinda cool knowing that I can now tie dye my own shirts.  The "tie dye" shirts you can buy at the store seem so generic.  They all look the same.  When you actually do your own tie dye you get the imperfections and that's the way it should be.  No two shirts should ever be the same.  Similar at most but very unique and different.  A lot like boomerangs in that regard.  No two boomerangs should ever be exactly the same, as much as they look like it.  Boomerangs should fly similar but different.  All part of the fun in tie dye and boomerangs.

Got to hang out at LouFest.  Saw Little Barrie, Son Volt, Phantogram, and Dinosaur Jr.  Lots of great music at the event.  Meet a lot of fans of KDHX as well.  Gave away a lot of stickers, fans, and station info.  Even wandered the crowds to give away stickers.  The musician were very melodious and gave me an idea for a new KDHX give away.  The idea has been passed up to the station folks and we shall see where it goes.

I do enjoy the process of spending a weekend volunteering at local events and radio stations.  It gives people a chance to meet their community.

On a side note, it does get me to wonder about organized service groups.  I am a member of the Kiwanis and frequently hear about Rotary.  Seems like they are all in need of members but I still never hear about them, at least from members themselves.  If I weren't a member of Kiwanis, I probably would not know about them, nor Rotary.  Attendance policy is another story.

Think I will try to include stats of how far I've gone hour wise with volunteering as I do them.  I'm not going to retroactivly update posts but I will continue them forward from here.  Therefore I will give the stats as of the details of this post.  Started logging at the 2011 Midwest Salute To The Arts last August.  Moving forward I will only post the cumulative for 2012 and then at some point stand out the year end total.

The totals as of the completion of these events are:
Event year (Aug 2011 to Aug 2012 Midwest Salute To The Arts): 330 hours
Cumulative 2012: 247

KDHX, Thursdays @ The Intersection, and JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound

Volunteered at yet another very cool KDHX and Grand Center event that featured  JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound.  It also happend to be a fairwell party for one of the KDHX fellers.  It was a good show with very awesome soulful sounds.  The band had a merch table for your collections and I did pretty well there.   Love volunteering at a radio station.  Get to see a lot of great events around town and hang out with awesome people.

Volunteering End of June, Start of July

It's been a bit since I've put up a volunteer post.  It's been a slow July for the most part.  Since Circus Flora in June, I got to usher at the Sheldon Concert Series with KDHX where John Henry & The Engine warmed up the crowd.  Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit was the headline group. It was a light crowd but a very good show.  Combination of country and rock with a tones of the blues. That was on the 29th of June.

On June 30 I helped out at Spencer Kennel and Pet Rescue.  It's a neat place with a lot of animals that need homes. If you need a place for your pets to stay for a bit, it's a good place to board your pet for a few days.

Twangfest 16

Got to work late into the night with Twangfest 16 Day 2 with line up of Kelly Hogan, Wussy, Deano & the Purvs, Pretty Little Empire.  Amazing line of acts. KDHX sure knows how to pick them with music.  Still two nights left if you guys are in the area to check it out.

First time in the Duck Room at Blueberry Hill.  There is a lot of references to ducks down there.  It's also where Chuck Berry plays once a month in St. Louis.  You can definitely say I found my thrills.

KDHX is an awesome radio station.  Glad I'm one of the kick butt volunteers.

KDHX Midwest Mayhem

Got a chance to hang out at the KDHX's Midwest Mayhem last night.  That is a neat event.  Lot's of music and people and burlesque from Show Me Burlesque.  The City Museum is a pretty neat place.  There is so much to explore in there.  It's an easy place to get lost in.  There's big whales, fake caves, turtles, tunnels, and fake trees.  It is a neat place to just hang out.  Lots of slides too.  One that is 3 stories high and one that is about 6 stories tall.  The 6 story one is worth the walk up the 6 flights of spiral stairs.  If you want to come hang out next year, support local, independent music with KDHX.

KDHX Membership Drive

The KDHX Spring 2012 Membership drive has completed.  Pretty stellar that the station raised 101% at the time of this writing.  It's pretty neat that I was one of the phone volunteers and helped make that happen.  I helped make part of that goal happen.  Yes, I do have a few bucks in there too.  Keep listening folks.  Lots of great stuff coming up.  Get a sticker from me if you see me on one of the many KDHX events.  Don't guarantee I'll be at all of them but I will make what I can.

I have thrown boomerangs in the station using what I could find in the station.  Not sure if it's a first or anything but I'd probably say it was.  New members are not calling full time, so got to fill the time in interesting ways during the down time.

Three out of four is not bad....

Busy day for March 31, 2012.... Started at 7:15am with a Kiwanis Blood Drive.  Got the room all set up and situated for the drive. Food table was stocked with snacks, food, and coffee.  The problem was that the supply truck for the Red Cross never showed up.  GRRRRR.  Don't know the details of what happened yet but I will let you know when I find out.  Early April Fools Joke?

Next up Toastmasters Division 6 contest.  Got to be the Sergeant at Arms and Ballot counter.  Escorted contestants to the sound proof booth and preparation areas.  Interesting experience for doing both duties for the first time for the Toastmasters at a contest.  The after contest hang out was cool at the IHOP too.  Tasty.

Also helping KDHX with their phone drive to collect funds for the station.  It's a 10 day process biannually.  It's a great station.  Member supported.  They can play pretty much anything, as long as it complies with the rules of broadcasting stuff.  You should give it a listen.  I'd bet there is something there for you, if you give it a sufficiently long listen.

Three out of four events that happened successfully is not bad at all.

Change The World

Changing the world is not as hard as it seems.  It does not matter if you're the small fish in the pond or the top dog.  We can all do things that can have an impact on the world.  It can be the little thing such as picking up a piece of litter.  The little things count even if no one is around to observe it.  You can make a different.

The cool stuff I'm doing, you can do to.  You can have the influence over your world.  You can be the person behind the scenes too.  It does not have to start out as some big thing that you have to organize.  There are organizations out there that are out to improve situations of the community and the world.  The Kiwanis, Rotary, or United Way are all great places to start out volunteering and making a difference.  Alternatively if you feel shy and reluctant to meet up with new strange people you can work on it with the Toastmasters.

Anyway's I'm going to be at the KDHX radio station tonight (7p to 9p) and tomorrow (5pm to 7pm).  Give me a call and support a great radio station.  The number is 314-664-3688.

Great concert at Sheldon Concert Hall with Hayes Carll

Got to hang out at the Sheldon Concert Hall with KDHX on March 18, 2012.  Neat show.  Got to see Hayes Carll and the opening act of Honey Honey.  Not a bad gig to put in a few hours of work for a show with awesome music.  There were funny stories, great music, and great people.

Should be an interesting start to the volunteering season.  Coming up next weekend is the FIRST Robotics Regional completion.  The following weekend of March 31, 2012 there is going to be a Kiwanis Blood Drive at the Public Safety Building in O'Fallon, from 9am to 1pm.  I then run over to the Toastmasters Regional Contest later that afternoon and a KDHX phone drive.  Looking forward to the madness.

Slow Winter...or not.

Winter time is the slow time of the year.   There is not much that goes on.  I did manage help out KDHX with a few concerts at the Sheldon.  The specific shows were Jay Farrar show and the Todd Snider show.  Volunteering is cool.  Some times you get to be behind the scenes and see stuff not many people get to see.  I didn't see a large part of the Sheldon Concert Hall but I've seen more than most.  KDHX membership drive is coming up again.  Seems like it was only a few months since the last one in October.  If you would like to send in a few bucks, it wold be appreciated. 

Also helped out the O'Fallon Kiwanis a few times in the last few months.  There was the Salvation Army Bell Ringing in December.  Recently we has spaghetti dinner.  It was good as always.  Don't know how we did by the numbers though. 

I am also a fully trained secretary by the Toastmasters.  Kinda sucks that I've been out of service since mid-December.  Life of a student but I am only 4 classes away from a Masters in Information Technology Management.  I am on a mission to document all of these experiences.  I've got 87 hours between August and December for 2011 and I want to beat that this year.

And I have moved this blog over to blogger.  Figure I'd try it out for a while.

Strange Folk Festival 2011

Another volunteer opportunity in the can from the Strange Folk Festival. Lots of interesting art and Strange People. Got to hangout backstage of the music and help with the setup of bands. Watched over booths for an artist and sold a few pieces of art in the process. Even helped out KDHX on the street team. Gave away CDs, stickers, temporary tattoos, and a few t-shirts.

There is a certain aspect to these events that really draw me in. It hits a nerve just right where I think I am almost maximally optimal. Being in the moment, making things happen. Its this idea that is where I think a part of my ISTP mindset just comes alive. Need to figure a way to possibly monetize this idea that I like being part of the action hands on. There is the short term purpose that drives me there but I get to walk away and do something different at the end of the day or the next weekend. Really like the hands on aspect of these events,the chance to see some cool "stuff" (not really always stuff but could be ideas or a neat product or food). The people, they are always pretty cool at these events and always out to make the event really work out.

It's all just a really neat adventure at these events. I've really only just started.

On a side note, let me know you're out there and post a comment about something or a question.