11/21/2016

Movie in the Park at Arbor Lodge in 2017...or Not?

Movie in the Park at Arbor Lodge in 2017 or not?

If you love it, please read and consider volunteering.  Without you, it won't happen.

We've had 3 years of fun watching a Movie in the Park at Arbor Lodge Park. But fundraising and planning for the event is challenging. We don't feel that the movie in the park accomplishes our main goal of getting the most neighbors possible meeting and talking to one another. The Arbor Lodge NA will be focusing instead of events like our neighborhood BBQ, which had fantastic turnout last year. Community is great, and food is great. Lets have more of both.

In the interest of transparency on the difficulty of fundraising and planning, this describes how the movie has worked in the past:

The movie in the park cost us $750 out of our annual budget of $1,100 last year. Each year, those costs have increased. And each year, the opportunity to raise funds via Movie in the Park advertising and sponsorship has tightened up. Our 1st year we had permission from the city to seek funds and we asked local businesses to give what they could starting at $25 for an ad that scrolled before the movie. The next year we negotiated with the city from their bottom line of $300 per add to $50 for local businesses, but the city didn't run the scroll of advertising, upsetting us and those who donated. This year the city required a $300 minimum for each ad. Also, for the first 2 years we (the Neighborhood Association) were able to "pass the hat" to help us pay for the movie. This year, the city - without letting us know - passed the hat for themselves. We did get the movie moved to a Friday night (at the request of neighbors who border the Park), but we usually don't get much input on the choice of the movie, or food vendors either. We like having the Movie at our Park, but as a Board we just can't support the process the City is using because it costs so much, doesn't allow us to engage our local business community, and doesn't serve our goals of gathering folks together to meet, get to know each other, and share fun.

Help us make our decisionIf you feel attached to, and would like to volunteer to organize it for Arbor Lodge, work with the City, and raise funds for the movie in the park, please let us know. If you are one of those neighbors who love this summer event and want to see it continue, if you want to raise $$ for the NA, most of it going for the movie in the park, let us know.  If we get enough folks, we will support you moving forward and help you succeed to the best of our abilities. Please contact us by the end of January if not sooner, as we will need to let Portland Parks and Recreation know about our plans at that time.

Again, we at the NA are choosing to focus on great events that draw people together to get to know each other like the BBQ and serving our community together like maintaining a pesticide-free Arbor Lodge Park and Harper's Playground. 

Questions? Contact Ginger at ginger.edws@gmail.com