In my monthly columns, I’ve enjoyed writing about the many success stories within our community: non-profit groups and businesses that have proven a little effort applied smartly can overcome almost any obstacle.  In fact, I have a few such stories to talk about later in this column, but first I want to share something different – a story of mostly failure.

I say "mostly" because there are still a few gems that deserve commendation for their efforts, who pulled something of a success from a losing situation.  But I want this story to give the right people a good kick in the ass for their shortsightedness, poor planning, lame excuses, and self-defeating attitude.  Yes this will be a rant...it’s been a while since the last time.

We at GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine work hard to create opportunities for local LGBT businesses and community groups to help themselves.  It’s the nature of our line of business to create potential, and that means the benefit of the space we offer directly correlates to the amount of effort and thought that our customers and community partners put into developing it.  To borrow from the popular metaphor, we’re not giving anyone a "fish", only a fishing rod.

The frustrating part is that when a poor effort is made by any one of these outside organizations and they don’t see the response or returns that they hoped for, we are often blamed.  It doesn’t matter that we’re going above and beyond in our job to get them the exposure that we promise, and able to prove that we’re delivering on that promise.  We’re giving them a perfectly good, tried and tested fishing rod, but we are blamed that it doesn’t catch enough "fish" when they’ve applied the wrong bait, or thrown in a bare hook.

It all boils down to one simple cosmic rule: when you put garbage in, you get garbage out.  This month we witnessed a microcosm of this play out for our whole community, at our booth at the Taboo shows in Calgary and Edmonton.

Many months in advance (in some cases nearly a whole year), we put out invitations and had discussions with the major non-profit groups that we deal with in both cities.  We were asking them to send representatives to spend some time over the 3-4 days of the show to fundraise or otherwise promote their organizations.  We stepped up our game at the show with an additional two booths opposite our usual double-booth space, where we had our own mini-stage and spotlight (courtesy of Club Sapien) for performances, and additional tables for groups to sell product and put out pamphlets.  In addition to this all, we were still offering our services to help the ISCCA, ISCWR, and Misc Youth put on the picture booth fundraiser, and our hope was that seeing these performers doing their thing onstage would create further demand for photos with them.

The potential was awesome for our community to come together, engage the show’s audience, give an upbeat impression of what Alberta’s LGBT community is all about, and raise some good money.

But the term "shit show" doesn’t begin to describe the diverse assortment of dysfunctions, failings, and excuses that we saw come up to defeat this idea.  Steve and I have never been so unimpressed with our community groups in general - it was a great opportunity mostly squandered.  And it’s not like this opportunity just fell into our laps either; we put in our own time, effort, and resources to make it happen, and certainly Taboo also made some concessions for us to do all of this in the hopes that it would add to the unique experience of their show.

In retrospect, Calgary’s show was not so bad.  According to Joey the ISCCA signed up nearly 20 individuals to volunteer at the booth, to raise funds by selling leis and to help push photos.  To their own disappointment, most of those individuals didn’t show up.  Instead of getting discouraged, those who did turn up worked a good deal harder.

Dale was a force to be reckoned with, tirelessly selling leis and helping to line up photos for all 4 days of the show.  Never once did he complain or let on that he may have been feeling tired – he kept a good face forward at all times, and his energy got people excited about the fundraiser and wanting to participate.

The dynamic duo of Joey (aka. Lucy Fur) and Marina were with us all days but Sunday.  While Marina managed cash, Joey was actively chatting up passersby to sell photos or performing songs on the stage to drum up interest.  On Thursday, the first day of the show, he and Ruby had our photo printer backlogged by an hour compelling us to bring in a second printer to keep up with the volume.

Over the course of the weekend we saw Ruby Hart, current reigning Empress Makayla Quinn St. Asia, Dyna Myte, Dark Tear, April Showers, Electronica, Toby Continued, Bulldozer, and Kiwi show up and contribute to various degrees by performing on the stage and getting in on photos.  We definitely cannot criticize the effort from the ISCCA this year – and it was well worth it because they raised just over $2500 from selling 308 photos, and we estimate 500 leis.

Misc Youth had planned to sell their swag at the booth but their show at the Junction in Edmonton the week prior had completely cleaned them out.  Members from the group still showed up to get in on the action by doing some performances and photos, though they were fairly laid back.  They took away just under $100 for the couple of hours they spent at the show on Friday and Saturday.

Justine B. showed up on Friday and Saturday, representing Pride Calgary, to sell rainbow-themed merchandise.  Despite being somewhat shy, she was able to bring in around $600 for her efforts, and even performed a drag number or two for fun.

Those were the gems that made the Calgary show worth all the trouble.  As great as that is, if everything had gone as we had hoped, imagine how much more they and other groups could have raised!

So immediately after Calgary’s show was over with, we redoubled our efforts trying to get Edmonton’s community organized for the Edmonton Taboo show two weeks later.  Despite this push, Edmonton’s show was just about a total write-off.

Running from Thursday to Saturday, there was no feasible way around me missing work and so I had to take two days off at a very inconvenient time.  We had to make arrangements for our cats to get through three and a half days without us there to administer their daily medical treatments.  We were late getting out the door because of incessant phone calls and although we arrived ahead of time in Edmonton, the rush hour traffic swallowed up that lead and then some.  My head was about ready to explode from the stress by the time we arrived at the Northlands Agricom building.  It was difficult to put on a smile for most of the day, but I began to mellow out again once our booth was set up.

The conditions were not ideal.  Our area was pretty dark.  Our loudspeakers, which were perfectly sufficient for the show in Calgary, were entirely drowned out by the sound from the stage to one side, and the seminar area to the other.  Only when cranked to full volume could one hear our music for drag numbers.

The ISCWR was the only community group that we were expecting to see that weekend.  This still seemed promising because they had done a stellar job in past years selling photos, pom-poms and chocolates, and we were determined to see them do even better this year.  But without drag queens for good chunks of the weekend, the photo idea was lost on many that came by our booth.  With not a single extrovert amongst the volunteers that stayed with us loyally for most of the show, the leis did little more than decorate their arms as they stared off into space and people walked by.

At first we allowed them some time to warm up to it on their own, but as Steve and I watched them calcify into statues we began to get slightly annoyed.  We didn’t go through all this trouble just to waste everyone’s time, so we started pushing them to get out there into the aisle and start talking to people.  When some of them made excuses that people looked like they wouldn’t be interested, Steve tried leading by example to prove them wrong.  In fact, more often than not those people were indeed interested - all Steve had to do was talk to them to explain why we had leis and drag queens, explain that we were fundraising for particular charitable causes, and how much fun a photo would be.

In one hour, early on the Saturday afternoon when attendance was still low, Steve probably sold more photos and leis than the four ISCWR volunteers had done for the whole of Thursday and Friday combined.  When Steve eventually stopped demonstrating, a few of them continued for a couple more sales, but eventually they went back to gathering moss and our own apathy grew.

The ISCWR just didn’t rally the right people to be there for this.  Those who did turn up seemed like they were there more as a favor to us, or because they felt guilty that they themselves had tried and failed to get more people out to help.  We appreciated them being there so as to not leave us hanging, but still the whole lot of us looked pretty lame for the majority of the weekend.  At several points I thought to myself, "I missed work for this?  A weekend that we could have been working on the magazine, and this is how we spent it?"

On the brighter side, Carmelle (I hope I’m spelling her name right), a queen who is not even part of the ISCWR, was kind enough to come by the show on Friday night when not a single ISCWR member could pull themselves away from an engagement at Junction.  She did a marvelous job of turning heads while she was performing on our stage, but pushing photos for the ISCWR and its charities wasn’t really her job or obligation.  Regardless, we were very grateful that she came by because it meant we weren’t twiddling our thumbs, it drummed up some interest in our booth, and she and her boyfriend seemed to enjoy themselves.

Otherwise the only true momentum we saw during the weekend was when Vanity Fair stopped by Thursday evening, and again on Saturday evening with Kitty LeBehr.  The ISCWR owes most of the estimated $700 to $800 they raised to these queens.  Ladonna did her part for a few hours on Saturday night with stage performances to reel people in so that Vanity and Kitty could line them up for photos.  As the token "leather boys" JJ Velour and I weren’t nearly as popular for the photos, but JJ still performed the occasional number to keep people interested.

By the end Saturday, the brutal 12 hour day of the show, we were exhausted and frustrated.  Some ISCWR volunteers were angry at us for pushing them so hard and for harping on them about leaving us in a lurch on Friday.  I don’t think Steve and I have ever felt so dissatisfied about doing something to benefit the community.  It sucked out every last drop of good will from me.

A few groups who could not be there were kind enough to still drop off materials for us to give out on their behalf.  But while these materials were great for the sporadic LGBT people that came by our booth, unfortunately they failed to provide something relatable for the majority of straight people at the show.  There needed to be someone there to tie it in for them on an individual level, or at least to offer them something of a souvenir that benefits the organization.

As for the remaining groups that didn’t show up at all - some were paralyzed by indecision: poor internal communication or complete lack of community awareness outside of their own group meant that the Taboo show was a complete surprise to them and so they opted to do nothing; failure to properly discuss ahead of time how they would participate in the show left them defaulting to do nothing; members in the know who had prior engagement and hadn’t thought to arrange for the remaining available members to do anything.  Some even turned their nose up at the opportunity, having decided they and their group didn’t want to have anything to do with a sex show.

It was pathetic, even a bit insulting to see these reactions from so many groups that we regularly stick our necks out to support, and yet it was so totally typical.  Garbage in, garbage out; we’ve seen it happen time and again in the past and somehow we kept forgiving them for it.  It’s not like we can bend any of these people over our knee and spank them for not living up to our expectations, I mean who are we to tell them what to do and how to do it?

So what can we really do?  Write a bitchy editorial that attempts to shame them into doing better?  We’ve seen how well people in this community take criticism – like it’s a knife straight to their heart.  Or perhaps we were expecting too much from people, and need to stop sticking our necks out so much.

Well I can’t let my negativity drown out everything - there were still some great things that happened in the community this past month.

The Western Canada LeatherSIR, Leatherboy, and Community Bootblack competition took place at the Calgary Eagle on the weekend between the Taboo shows.  On the Friday there was a meet and greet, and leather swap auction to raise money for the travel fund for the winning competitors.  On Saturday the competition ensued, and out of town dignitaries from the Leather and Fetish scene judged our local contestants.  Amongst the interesting demonstrations I thought the acronym behind the name of one of the judges, Pup Nitro, was clever: Needs Intense Torture to Reach Orgasm.  Also I reveled at the volley of impromptu Jesus jokes told by last year’s winners and hosts for the show, Sir Scott and boy René, while the judges conferred.  Sir Marc and boy Daniel were selected as our region’s new LeatherSIR and Leatherboy.  On Sunday afternoon there was a Victory Brunch for the two winners, which was a great opportunity to hang out with them and the judges from the night prior.

Furthermore, while we were away at the Edmonton Taboo show, we were regrettably missing a phenomenal World AIDS Day fundraiser being put on at FAB bar by Dion Boink and Jason Wheeler, which according to organizers raised a whopping $6500!  The event happened opposite Mz. Rhonda’s annual Crowns for Kids event at Twisted Element, which according to organizers collected an estimated $500 in toys, and $3000 in donations.

It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner, and of course that means the usual set of community traditions: ARGRA’s Christmas Dinner and Dance on the 3rd at Club Sapien, and some good old Christmas drag shows in both Calgary and Edmonton.  Of course don’t forget about the Living Christmas Tree fundraiser at the Calgary Eagle on the 10th, and their Christmas Dinner on the 18th.  Then of course, check your local hangouts for info on New Years Eve parties.

We’d like to wish our readers a Merry Christmas, or simply Happy Holidays if you prefer.  Stay warm, stay sane, and watch out for falling trees!  See you in 2012.