President's Corner by ASIFA Central President Jim Middleton
ASIFA/Central Retreat 2003
OK, we have KAFI coming, and that means we're in full ASIFA Central RETREAT!
The three days in Kalamazoo are crammed with activities as it is, so finding times for convenient gathering moments will be a challenge. In full expectation that these things will change at the last minute, here's our tenative itinerary. There will be an ASIFA Central meeting room assigned to us at the KVCC Arcadia building downtown "a real live hospitality room" so these gatherings will be there. In addition, last minute changes, postings, or panic attacks will be posted near there as well.
We're ALWAYS LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS. If you're a poor starving college student, WE HAVE WAYS OF MAKING YOU ENJOY YOURSELF, even if it will ruin your reputation as a cranky, misunderstood artiste type. Contact me! JimMiddleton! jimmiddleton@juno.com. Contact our Deanimatrice Deanna! morsed@gvsu.edu. We're looking for people to help staff the hospitality suite (actually, just to watch that nobody makes off with the VCR) while the room is otherwise unattended, and to help get ASIFA IDs together to WEAR WITH PRIDE at the festival...
These events feature ASIFA dudes and dudettes, and if I've forgotten someone I apologize, but poor Jennifer has been waiting patiently for me to get this stuff done and I'll be darned if I'm missing another episode of Futurama (the only thing that keeps me going some Sundays, believe me). As KAFI approaches, there will be more emails and cards coming your way. BEWARE!
FRIDAY, May 16
6pm: Helen Victoria Haynes World Peace Storyboard Competition - State Theatre
7pm: Informal gathering for all members KVCC Hospitality Room-Executive members please attend! Open screening time!
10pm (or later depending on when competition screenings subside at the State): More open screening time! Bring your Works in Progress. Bring your Works In Semi-Completion!
SATURDAY, May 17
8am: General Meeting "Where have we gone, what have we done, where will we do it again?"
5pm: Networking Picnic "Bell's" it's open to all KAFI attendees, but that doesn't mean ASIFA can't play LIKE A BUNCH OF YEEEEHAARR animals!
7pm: More open screenings at the KVCC Hospitality Room
10pm: Still more screenings! Again, we're feeling Hospitable!
SUNDAY, May 18
8am: Afterglow meeting, general discussions, eating the leftovers, you know, the exhaling begins, final opportunity to swap business cards, addresses, phone numbers, fake IDs...AND THE OBLIGATORY DISPERSAL OF DOOR PRIZES! How could I have forgotten THAT!
Noon: Jim babbles about sound at the EPIC center
4-6pm: Open screenings
For the complete series of events coming down the pike, be sure to check out the KAFI web site, www.kafi.kvcc.edu. Maps to downtown Kalamazoo are there as well. We are fortunate in that all of the primary programs are within a three-block walking distance of each other and that downtown Kalamazoo is jammed with great places to meet and eat. Or not eat meat.
If you have ANY QUESTIONS or CONCERNS about the feeble itinerary above, please feel free to contact me. Jim Middleton. That ever-procrastinating bozo in the Surreal City. Email: jimmiddleton@juno.com. I know I have been swamped with the usual endless stream of activities here in Battle Creek lately, and have been horrible remiss in behaving like a living entity, but this event is going to be soooo much fun, and after the experiences of the past year, believe me, I need soooo much fun. Let's play! Let's play until we ALL NEED A NAP, and THEN LET'S DREAM ABOUT CARTOONS!
Also, there are still limited numbers of discounted rooms available for KAFI visitors. Contact Dave Baker for specifics. His email: dbaker@kvcc.edu.
And DOOR PRIZES? You want to know about DOOR PRIZES? Well, let's look in this little bag of tricks here--there's the infamous Hollywood Cartoons, a pair of Simpsons watches, some candy of indeterminate vintage, a collection of VHS tapes including Fleischer's Gulliver's Travels, books on After Effects and Lightwave, a build-it-yourself Zoetrope, and a Disney trivia game that NOBODY will play with me here in Battle Creek (if it doesn't have trucks or mud wrestling, I just can't seem to stimulate interest), And that's all I can dig out without scaring the dog. Give me a chance to clean out the basement, and you'll have so much ballast by the time you leave Kalamazoo that you'll have to get industrial shocks.
And that, my darlings, is my bedtime story for now.Sweet dreams.
Jim Middleton