Tuesday

Weekly Newsletter

"A day late and a dollar short..."

Sorry for the delay on getting the "X Lake MI" newsletter. vol.1 completed. I had promised some of you this by Sunday, but my "real" job reared it's ugly head and I had to work on Sunday.

But, anyway, welcome all. I am not a proficient writer, but will do my best.

I wanted to thank you all for your interest in this event.

The blog site xlakemi.com covers many of the basic ideas about the crossing. However, many other ideas/problems/concepts need some unified debate...

I wanted to use a weekly newsletter format to answer questions that have come up from various folks without having to do individual e-mails and to foster a sense of community.

After all, we all must be a bit nuts, so let's revel in our own uniqueness, shall we? :)

Anyway, there are a lot of "Big Questions" asked so far to cover so here they are and what I know about them as of now:

1) Who's in Charge?: You are. This is your group, our group. Not mine. I just wanted to do this and knew I'd need a group to do it. I am just sort of the mouthpiece, since I opened my mouth on a Chicago forum and did a blog page on it as much to reaffirm to myself that this is possible, as to attract others. This is not something to attempt alone. We need each other. I appreciate you banding together with me.

2) Who are the sponsors? Right now, without any more publicity, it looks like we are. No corporate sponsorship, but, then again, this means no one to answer to. Not a bad deal. Also, we get to use our own favorite equipment.

3) How much will it cost? Now that's a good question! It will depend upon how many boaters we can persuade to be a safety boat for free. I would prefer one boat per rider. We all have different equipment, with different speeds and different skills, so having you own personal boat with a fellow kiteboarder on board for emergencies, water/food handoffs, relaunches and to run ahead of you and help break the waves will make for a smoother and more safe crossing for all. Besides, someone has to do the pictures/video for us to show our kids/grandkids someday... :)

4) Why tie this into a fundraiser? See #3 above. I am hoping we can get some folks to donate some tax deductible boat time and gas for a cause. Worst case scenario: we get some free boats/boaters, but have to reimburse them for the gas. A fundraiser also gets a lot more publicity than we can generate ourselves. If anyone has a better way to achieve this end, please put it out for group discussion.

5) How would money be raised? There would be the efforts of all of us bugging friends, relatives, coworkers, strangers, merchants we frequent, as well as a web site for credit card donations.

6) Who's in charge of the money? You are responsible for any donations you receive until they are sent in to the charity. Please let the charity contact person know when you send any checks/funds. The charity will be the agent for the bank account that the donation website links to. I do not want to be too involved in this aspect, nor would any of you, I would guess. I just want to cross Lake MI.

7) When is the best time to go? Another good question. The more I hear from the KB community, the more I am being told to push this off until late August. Now, that is folks speaking from their observations and gut impressions from past experience. I want, and I think you would, too, some more scientific data on historical wind direction/speed/air temp. I am currently looking into doing just that, If anyone knows a meteorologist, or ould like to crunch the numbers for all of us, please let me know. I want to do this with the greatest chance of success and safety.

8) Who are we raising funds for? So far we have two contenders: UW Children's Cancer Research Center and the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin. Open to more suggestions... Final decision will be by the group after we receive any more suggestions.

9) Who is all going? So far, the interested parties are in the "To" box above. If you would like to do a name/address/phone swap, it would only be among those who give specific approval.

10) How do we all communicate together? I am trying to use Google and the XLakeMI.com site as an "organization." That would allow us to use all of Google's services for free: online collaboration, e-mail accounts for us all, group forum discussion, etc. Again, if anyone has a better way to collaborate online, let me know. That would dispense with the need for a weekly newsletter and we could just log in and see what's happening at any time. In the meantime, I have set up a "team blog" we can all view and post to: http://xthelake.blogspot.com. You should have received an invitation by "Administrator" (that was me, setting it up) to join the team blog in your e-mail in box.

11) Is this non-profit? Yes. I have applied for a non profit unincorporated association designation with the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions. The name is X Lake MI, U.A. ("unincorporated association"). I have pulled the "Google Adsense" ads from the " XLakeMI.com" site until we have a place for any revenue to go from these that we can agree on. The ad for "free viral" marketing remains, as it helps get "hits" to the site to increase awareness and does bot generate any revenue.

12) What next? I will immediately notify you if I have success in setting up a Google site for us all to join in and post in. Otherwise, please use the non-public Google blog: http://xthelake.blogspot.com.

I guess that's it.

Hope this was informative, yet only infused with a bit of boredom, not too much.

Take Care!

Visit http://xthelake.blogspot.com and start meeting/posting with the rest of the crew!

Sincerely,

Chaz