Copyright © 2002-2010 BOSF. All Rights Reserved.
Bears of San Francisco
584 Castro St #266
San Francisco, CA 94114
Wow where has the time gone, can you believe we are in 2010 already? We made many changes in 2009 with the biggest change being
the host hotel for IBR 2010. After submitting a equest for Proposal (RFP) to the San Francisco Convention Bureau, the Parc 55 and their sister
hotel Westin on Market became the leaders meeting over 90% of our requirements. After meeting with the staff and touring each hotel, the
Parc 55 won our business. The Parc 55 Hotel, completed a total remodel and did their grand reopening June 2009, and what a coincidence that it
occurred on the night of the first IBR Planning meeting. After the meeting, we were able to tour the convention floors to see the hotel and staff in action.
I am sure you will be impressed with the hotel because it does bring back some of the fun components from the old Ramada. Once again, we will be able to go bear fishin’ in the lobby. There are plenty of bear sized lounge areas around the hotel to sit and catch-up of old friends and make new ones. For your safety all convention space is on camera so, be careful what you are doing in the halls and take it to your room. Along with the new hotel, we have new offerings during IBR the newest being our Artist Room. Here our local artist have an area to display their artwork, hopefully sale some of it and generate a lot of buzz for themselves and the art room. We are hoping this is successful so we canexpand next year.
We are up from the underground all of our convention space is above ground and we have all three floors (2, 3, and 4). On the third floor, you will find the Vendor Maul in the Embarcadero Room and the IBR HQ Store/Registration will be in the Market Street Room. The forth floor you will find the Game Room in the Hearst_Fillmore Room, the Artist Room in the Mission 1-3 room, the squishy (adult viewing) room is in the Stockton room. Another big change is the location of the Bear Hands Message Group, they will be in their own room on the forth floor in Balboa. The Cyril Magnin Foyer and Ballroom are the two biggest spaces we will be utilizing.
The Cyril Magnin Foyer will be the location of the Welcome Party and Ice Breaker on Thursday, Club Day and the Presidents Reception on Saturday,
Hanky Dance and the Contest on Sunday. Cyril Magnin Foyer will be the gathering area for Sister Bingo on Friday with Bingo in the Cyril Magnin
Ballroom. We will be hosting the Dinner and Community Service awards in the Cyril Magnin Ballroom on Sunday. A new activity for this year is a Hanky
Dance at the hotel on Saturday Night hosted by the Sundance Saloon San Francisco. The story as I heard it, in 1869 there were 2206 men and only
30 women in San Francisco. Most of those 30 women were in some form of prostitution. There were enterprising madams who understood how to work the business, they would offer, cards game, liquor, bathes, and women. To attract the men to their establishment they would offer dancing, this would allow the men to get close to the women. The women would flirt and get the guys to buy liquor. Once the men were good and liquored up
(and horny) the women would take them up to a room, when the men passed out, they would swap out the good furniture with busted up furniture then in the morning the guy would be handed a bill for the busted furniture. If he could pay he was ok, if he could not he became an employee of the madam. During the next dance, men that worked for the madam wore pantaloons over top of their pants. After the bill was paid in full, the guys could continue to work for the madam with the money going to her and he was identified by wearing a hanky in their right back pockets. Hence the name Hanky Dance. Now our version will be a little more updated. We will introduce the IBR contestants and this is the actual start of the contest. Our Contestants will be selling raffle tickets for those that do not like crowded bars you will have a chance to support your favorite contestant and more chances to when some fabulous raffle prizes. As part of the IBR Planning committee I invite you all to come check out all the changes, the new conveniently located hotel and enjoy IBR 16 Barbary Coast Bears~ Sin, Fire & Gold.
Hope to see you here at IBR 16 Barbary Coast Bears.
BOSF has a reputation for being organized, professional, and drama free (at least in public). We owe that reputation to our volunteers. Most of our community contact is at street fairs, beer busts and IBR…all fund raising events. This is also where most of our volunteer opportunities are found.
Not everyone can or wants to volunteer at our regular events, so I started a yahoo group a couple of years ago to fill that gap. There were two reasons for this. BOSF should have a higher profile with the general public in San Francisco. Also, members who otherwise don’t participate might get motivated.
It was a shaky start. We did successfully volunteer at KQED for a television pledge drive. It was great fun and BOSF got a lot of exposure (the good
public kind). That was it. I got busy with other things and let it wither. I’d like to kick start this project by asking you to join the yahoo group.
This is a different volunteer track than the BOSF website. I will try not be offering volunteer outings that compete with traditional BOSF events.
I hope to repeat KQED. I would like to get us to Habitat for Humanity. The third Saturday in March is the first volunteer work day at the AIDS Memorial
Grove in Golden Gate Park. I would like to see a BOSF work group out there for 3 hours of gardening. We hope to connect with hands-on direct action
sorts of volunteer opportunities for both individuals and groups. This community service arm of the Bears of San Francisco could be quite a boon to us and to San Francisco... So check it out http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BOSFComSer/
The Bears of San Francisco was started in part to give financial support to the community. We are a nonprofit “with charitable intent” (which always sounded slightly illegal). “Loitering with charitable intent”? We donate to non-profits that are under the radar of the general public. One service we could not provide was giving money directly to an individual in need. A few years ago, we were asked to join the Inter Club Fund which does just
that. It was established during the heyday of bike clubs by those clubs. If a club member was incapacitated because of an accident, the fund would help defray some of the day to day costs. Later these grants were also extended to members who were ill. By joining ICF, BOSF was able to refer individuals in need of help. Recently the ICF merged with the Leather Forum to form the San Francisco Bay Area Leather Alliance. The Alliance has incorporated the grant giving function of the ICF as well as the social functions of the Forum. There is a calendar listing the functions of all the member groups.
The Alliance organizes a Holiday Party in December as a thank you to all volunteers from the previous year-Beer Booth People please note. They also hold a progressive dinner as a fund raiser. The newly resurrected Mr. San Francisco Leather Contest with a Community Awards Dinner is also sponsored. The Alliance is basically a club of clubs. Each of the thirteen member organizations has a representative on the board and, at the moment, seven independent directors. Larry Rivera is the lead director for BOSF and Liza Selby is the alternate. Follow this link to the Alliance website. You will find not only the calendar but information on qualifying and applying for a grant including the forms. Contact Larry or Liza for help.
http://www.sfbayarealeatheralliance.org/index.php The quartmasters marks by Larry Rivera A Club of Clubs Volunteer?
BEAR TRACKS
1 Quarter 2010, volume 10 Issue 1
The quartmasters marks
by Larry Rivera
