Community Matters

(Community Matters) Powerful video. I don’t know about the group or initiative.

(Community Matters)

Happy Birthday, Ora

Mayor Lee Leffingwell & Ora Houston

Jo Krouse & Catherine Petit

(Community Matters) Senator Gillibrand was in town today for a luncheon. Many thanks to our hosts for seating me next to her. Wow, she blew me away.

My husband is gonna kill me, but I couldn’t help myself. I’ve agreed to serve on her national finance committee. She is smart, attuned to her constituents and committed to the principles of a progressive and financially responsible leadership. She believes healthcare reform will pass the Senate this year, and she’s committed to ensuring the Stupak-Pitts amendment doesn’t make it into the final bill, noting that it will set back women’s reproductive rights by 30 years.

w/ State Rep. Elliott Nashitat

She’s also taken the lead in the US Senate on repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, believing Chmn Levin’s hearings will garner the final votes necessary to reach 60 to pass a repeal next year.

w/ National Women’s Political Caucus Chair, Lulu Flores

She’s in a tough place, needs to raise another $10mm at least for the special election in 2010, then another race in 2012 for a full term. She has the potential to be a very important national leader.

(Community Matters) Two young redheads, a lot of energy, even more friends and a nose for what’ll be fun – Alex Winkelman and Jessica Gross. Charity Bash describes itself as partying with a purpose and teaching a younger generation to give at a younger age.

Jessica Gross & Alex Winkelman

Last night’s bash was sponsored by the MFI Foundation and Suzanne & Marc Winkelman, the latter Alex’s parents and my good friends. Of course, MFI is Lynn & Tom Meredith’s family foundation. I’m not sure how much they raised, I couldn’t stay long, too exhausted by a long week and needed a quiet night in to read. Did connect with Andy Brown, Michael Barnes, Alex, Earl & Maxwell during the first 45 mins of the event – Marc & Suzanne arriving as I was leaving.

I’m moving my blog to Word Press.

Big surprise I am having a bit of difficulty with this (my fault, not the provider’s).  I’m working on importing all older posts.  Regrettably, I appear to have changed the domain name before completing the import, thus older postings only updated from Sept 28, 2008.  There’s another 1,800 yet to be transferred.  Not that you want to see those, but the last few days postings may be of interest 🙂

I’ll manually repost some from this morning and yesterday for now.

thanks in advance for your patience

(Community Matters) I am thrilled to read Pres. Obama will not approve any troop increases without an exit strategy. Who the hell would argue with this? Investors won’t invest dollars without an exit strategy but some Congressman and military brass want us to invest more lives of young men & women and billions of US dollars without one?

(Community Matters) Terrific fundraiser for Rob Miller, who’s running for Congress in S. Carolina against the infamous Joe Wilson (“you lie”). Rob’s a Marine, Iraq war veteran and small business owner. I really like him – very practical, experienced, dedicated and fiscally conservative/socially moderate.

He’s also the first cousin once removed of Laurence Miller, who hosted last night’s event. Lots of friends in attendance including Judy Willcott, Congressman Doggett, Alexa Wesner, Adrienne Donato, Kirk Rudy, Charles Duggan, Glenn & Linda Neland, Meredith Marks, Luke Hayes, Emmy Ruiz and others (my memory is getting worse, ughh).

(Community Matters) why, how

(Community Matters) my husband – in from NYC last night sometime past midnight, off this morning to teach, then off to Philly until Saturday.

(Community Matters) so, Jan Hill had a dream of a ride that one day raised $1,000,000 for breast cancer services in Central Texas. She had this dream about 5 years ago. About 4 years ago she teamed up with Nan McRaven and they gathered up all the breast cancer service providers to talk about services and volunteer opportunities. About 3 years ago, the Entrepreneurs Foundation agreed to adopt the collaboration of providers as a leadership project. Marion Cimbala joined EF and worked for the collaboration. We talked about a vision for the continuum of services, incubated new ones, raised monies, conducted studies and reengaged in conversations about this ride. About 2 years ago, David Smith agreed to create the Mamma Jamma Ride AGAINST Breast Cancer. One year ago, Kerry Tate agreed to serve as honorary chair of the ride (I haven’t seen anything honorary about it, she worked her tail off too).

Kerry Tate, Jan Hill & David Smith

Last night at Galaxy Cafe (Mamma Jamma sponsor extraordinaire!) David, Jan & Kerry announced we raised $564k our very first year.

Jan’s dream was to one day raise $1,000,000. We budgeted to raise $250,000 our first year, though we all hoped to hit $400,000 – wow, $564,000 our first year.

Teresa Ricar and daughter Amy Lynn

Teresa volunteer in charge of corporate teams and giving – for the Mamma Jamma & the Hill Country Ride for AIDS

Kevin Johns, Mark Kelly, Becky Taylor & Brigid Shea

David Altounian (Motion Computing), Joanna Luttjohann (Pervassive), Larry Stone (Motion)

Funny story about Dave and his first training ride. There were some issues which needed to be addressed. Thankfully Dave expressed his concerns, the issues were addressed and Dave became one of the ride’s biggest cheerleaders and supporters. He went on to co-chair the EF corporate teams.

Jackie Oaks & Sandi Aitken

Jackie co-chaired logistics; Sandi chaired outreach. They obviously both way exceeded expectations 🙂

Alisa Weldon, Millie Price, Lynn Slayton Yeldell, Oliver Everette

Amon, Carol & Scott Burton & Brandi Clark

Cherie Matthews & Sloan Foster

Wow, the team blew away expectations. Just being with them last night, easy to see how. Congrats

(Community Matters) A friend asked what do I think about AmericaBlog’s call for a DNC boycott. My answer:

I certainly understand John’s and others’ frustrations – of course we all share impatience for achieving full equality

So much of what John Aravosis lists in his FAQ is flat out wrong, and he knows it. We exchanged emails earlier this year about some of this. And, John and Joe are important voices in our community.

I’m glad there’s dissension and impatience, though a boycott of the DNC and OFA? That’s extraordinarily counterproductive and shortsighted. (I appreciate the reference to a break rather than a boycott)

There is and always has been movement on all these fronts in the big white house on Pennsylvania Ave. As to frustration with the Hill, they should really be boycotting the DCCC and DSCC, but let’s not do that either.

I continue to believe that a stronger economy and healthcare reform will impact more LGBT families than military service and marriage combined. I don’t believe in mutual exclusivity and I do understand gathering votes. Thus, I support not losing even one hanging-by-the-thread vote on healthcare reform before bending (maybe breaking) arms to get DA/DT and DOMA repeals done. President Obama remains our friend and advocate. The DNC and OFA exist to support the President’s agenda. I support both.

(Community Matters) The Church of LDS supports Salt Lake City passage of LGBT employment and housing ordinance.