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We're Not Foolin'
"Religion, Sexual Orientation and the Law"
We're Not Foolin’ —
We Need Your Help!
by Carrie Rampp
President, Mountain Pride Media
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You’ve probably heard it all before, and regularly: GLBT organizations in Vermont regularly publicize volunteer opportunities. Sometimes, the sheer number of requests can be so overwhelming that people are too overwhelmed to respond.
But we aren't foolin’ around! We need your help. As the President of Mountain Pride Media, I am appealing to you directly to consider making a commitment of time to the publisher of Out in the Mountains.
Mountain Pride Media is actively recruiting volunteers to fill a number of essential roles. As an organization run exclusively by volunteers, we need community involvement to keep our programs running and successful. We need you to put your expertise to work for our community, assuring that we can continue to deliver all that our community has come to expect from us. To accomplish all that we do, we need to find people committed to Mountain Pride Media who are willing to put in the time and energy to help us succeed.
Rather than simply ask you to “volunteer today,” I'd like to take this opportunity to specifically outline some of the areas in which we are anxious to find additional helping hands.
Publishing
Each month, Mountain Pride Media manages to get more than 6000 copies of OITM to the community through an incredible network of volunteers. Volunteers also get copies to more than 500 subscribers. Our Publishing Committee keeps this process and our advertising objectives on track. And right now, the Publishing Committee needs more committee members. Community volunteers would attend the monthly committee meetings and our “stuffing” (the mailing party) the last Thursday of each month. If you would be willing to step up and learn how to coordinate these monthly “stuffings,” or learn how to coordinate our volunteer network for distributing the paper, or perhaps assist with our advertising sales process, than this committee could put you to work immediately!
Technology
We are aggressively seeking individuals willing to get involved with our Technology Committee. The committee directs the development of our website, evaluates new services, and assists our Web Editor with numerous technology-related initiatives. Members take time to review our web page - www.mountainpridemedia.org - regularly and get actively involved in making sure it remains current. We also provide support for our general technology infrastructure, including making recommendations and assisting with computer upgrades (primarily Macs). Also, we desperately need individuals with database experience to serve on our committee and perhaps eventually to serve as our database manager. Experience with Filemaker Pro would be very useful in this role. If you are unable to serve on our committee, perhaps you could get involved with our archive project, the objective being to get the entire collection of OITM back issues online.
The basics: Do you have a computer and a word processing application? Would you be willing to type articles from our archives to assist in the creation of a complete Out in the Mountains online archive? Articles need to be typed from hard copy and then prepared for posting on the web. This is a very easy way to get involved and requires little technical know-how. A few hours a month could helps us make considerable progress towards our goal of a complete online archive of OITM.
More advanced: Do you have experience creating web pages? Do you have access to a computer, a scanner, and/or Macromedia Dreamweaver? Would you be willing to take text files and create web pages for our archive project? Even a few hours a month could get us much closer to our goal.
Finance & Personnel
Do you have experience in Financial and/or Personnel issues? We’d love to fill some currently vacant committee slots on our Finance/Personnel Committee. The committee meets monthly and reviews our budget and income statements, prepares our taxes, and handles personnel matters like coordinating our annual staff evaluations, compiling and revising job descriptions, and advertising open positions.
Fundraising
Do you have fundraising experience? Have you coordinated fundraising events, written grant proposals, planned and carried out fundraising mailings? We could use immediate assistance in all these areas. Advertising pays for just a little over half of the publishing expenses for Out in the Mountains. Mountain Pride Media also relies on grants and direct contributions from individuals, thus this is an area where we must remain strong.
Outreach
Mountain Pride Media is committed to reaching out to our community. If helping our community connect is something that appeals to you, we’d love to talk to you about joining our Outreach Committee, which meets monthly. The committee plans and executes all of our Outreach events and is particularly eager to involve people from areas of the state that we are not reaching as effectively as we would like. If you have experience with event planning or are generally a great “people person,” we'd love to have you!
Out in the Mountains
Out in the Mountains is always looking for new volunteers to help out in a variety of ways. If you are interested in journalism, feature writing, or photography, OITM is a great place to gain more experience and share your thoughts and talents with Vermont’s GLBT community. Now that OITM has regular office hours (Monday through Thursday from 10 to 5), we need volunteers who are interested in helping out with organization, production, and general office duties. Contact the editor-in-chief, Jason Whipple, at editor@mountainpridemedia.org, or call 434-6486.
Getting involved with MPM (Mountain Pride Media) is a great way to help the Vermont GLBT community. Our mission is simple: to develop and strengthen the community of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning Vermonters through the development and maintenance of communication vehicles. Although the mission isn’t complicated, implementing it can be challenging. It requires volunteers with particular skills who are willing to put their abilities to work for us in serving the community. If you have energy and expertise, please consider contacting us immediately to learn more about our organization and the needs I have outlined. You can contact us at mpm@mountainpridemedia.org, or you can contact me directly at rampp@middlebury.edu.
And I'm serious — we're not foolin’! We need your help to keep our organization viable!
Carrie Rampp has served on the Mountain Pride Media Board of Directors since 1999 and has been the President since June 2001. When she's not thinking about Mountain Pride Media, she and her partner, Jenn, are regularly found picking away at the slow renovation of their 1790's federal-style home, known by most as “the big white shack,” in Leicester, Vermont. Carrie is also the Manager of Web Communications at Middlebury College.