First Friday Update - September 4, 2009
Summer is supposed to be the easy time of year. This summer has been anything but! Of course NEXT summer is the next conference which is always busy. I'm at a friend's house in Connecticut with my family, on our way between last night's Cask Night in Pennsylvania and this weekend's Nevus Outreach Gathering in Massachusetts. It's late, we've been driving all day, we had a great dinner with friends and then Wii bowled, baseballed, golfed and tennised ourselves to death.
Then I remembered I have to send out a First Friday Update!
What have we accomplished during the heat of the summer?
JUNE
- Conference 2010 planning meeting
- 4th Annual "Gracie and Friends" fundraiser
- begin cerebellum study of NCM patients
JULY
- Team Stockbridge ride across America fundraiser
- meetings in Geneva with scientists and funders
- attend SPD meeting
- meet with Canfield Scientific
- tour tissue bank
AUGUST
- Kathy Stewart Birthday fundraiser (!)
- Finish independent financial audit
- board establishes nevus research collaboration to involve as many as 8 institutions
SEPTEMBER
- Cask Night fundraiser
- Cape Cod gathering
- etc (it's only September 4th for goodness sake)
Forgive me if I am too tired to say much more. I'll close with a fabulous anecdote: The Bethlehem Brew Works was hesitant at first to allow Nevus Outreach to be the beneficiary of their monthly "Cask Night" event where the point is to break out a cask of beer brewed especially for the designated charity. They felt that because giant nevi are so rare, we might not be able to bring in enough people to make it a successful event. Well ... they tapped our cask at 5pm, and Kim Reinart and her loyal patrons polished off the whole cask in less than an hour! (At one glass each I might add). Word on the street is that this is a record, and nearly $1000 was raised for Nevus Outreach.
So as usual, nevus supporters have risen to the occasion and exceeded expectations. You guys are so great! Call to action: last month Megan Fields was in town, and we formulated a plan for grass-roots fundraisers to win free registrations to the 2010 conference. Your job will be to figure out how to raise a few bucks to get your favorite family to the conference. There will be fabulous prizes. Stay tuned.
As always, do feel free to contact us for any reason. We absolutely look forward to talking to you!
Stay cool,
Mark Beckwith
Executive Director
Nevus Outreach, Inc.
(918) 331-0595 office
(918) 440-6123 cell
