While Greg and Brian are talking about “Battling Back”; Eric, Teri and I have been talking about “Throwing Parties”. As in Rent Parties.
If you are not familiar with the term, Rent Parties flourished in Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. Musicians would make the rounds after their paying gigs, guests would pay a small admission fee to dance and party all night at someone’s apartment, and the host would end up with enough money to pay the landlord for another month.
Greg’s revealing personal post yesterday inspired the idea that we could throw a Rent Party online. And. the party could boogie on 24/7/365.
To my surprise the domain name virtualrentparty.com was available. By last night I had the bare bones foundation of the site up and running; and Teri had incredible visions of the good work that could be done. You can see our work at http://www.virtualrentparty.com
Meanwhile, I am plumb tuckered out. 🙂
Anyone who would like to work with us on building out the content please tell us in the comments; we’re thinking everything from video dance contests, to straight talk around the kitchen table about putting your financial life together. I will quickly and gratefully send any volunteer a login ID and password.
And yes, there are already a couple donations in the hat. I certainly respect that you didn’t intend to induce charity, Mr. Swann, but there it is, your friends won’t leave you to face trouble alone. If you won’t accept the funds, I bet Cathleen’s foster pet project would happily accept them, or Teri has some ideas in her community too.
Teri Lussier says:
It’s a scenius, baby. Cheryl you rock!
There are plenty of ways to work this thing and it’s all in the planning stages right now so I would welcome comments.
I don’t know everything that’s planned for BattleBack (BB), but I thought that perhaps VirtualRentParty (VRP) could be the after hours, EPIC, party place. And 2 fingers of Bushmill’s is not going to do for an after party, particularly a shin-dig, a DANCE party (I know from dance parties) so *of course* it was up to someone else to plan this. 😉
My thoughts: there are real victims of foreclosure- kids and pets. These are the household members who do not make decisions and are at the mercy of decision makers. I know of no organizations that help children during foreclosures, but there must be some. I’d like to help them. Pet organizations, we know about. We can help them as well.
My ideas were to host Battle of the Bands, America’s Got Talent, America’s Best Dance Crew, etc, talent competitions- online, voting, popularity contests, whatever you want to call it, the end justifies the means in this case.
I can see this going hyperlocal. VRP hosts local competitions with money staying local. Eric can talk about the link love, karma-esque possibilities with this, but a place like Dayton Ohio could use the national love a small spotlight like this could bring- your community could too, perhaps?
Donations? Cheryl suggested a tip jar. I see an entrance fee, and a nominal pay per vote? I don’t know, my fund raising skills were once sharp as a blade, but they are a bit rusty now, and online fund raising is a first for me, so someone else will have to pitch in and help.
At any rate, Cheryl had the big idea, I simply run with ideas in all sorts of whacky directions until someone with more experience reins me in.
I’m like Cheryl, open to suggestions, ideas, donations… Did this spark anyone’s brain? Let’s hear it.
May 10, 2009 — 8:56 am
Teri Lussier says:
One more thing- truly inspired by Greg’s transparency- Cheryl, I will not budge on this, although I’m sure you agree- all donations, amounts, recipients, etc will be completely and fully disclosed. I don’t want anyone to ever wonder how much came in and where it went.
May 10, 2009 — 9:08 am
Scott Cowan says:
Everyone-
The recent posts and the flood of comments have touched me in a way that I am not yet able to put into words.
I think the idea of a Virtual Rent Party is simply smashing. We can work out the details but please count me in!
May 10, 2009 — 9:43 am
Greg Swann says:
Just catching up to this now. It’s a nice looking site, but I want to emphasize that we are fine. I made a risky series of choices, but that’s what entrepreneurs do. My signal error was one of timing, and I’ll pay a premium for that. I disclosed the Notice of Trustee’s Sale not to induce pity or charity — which we don’t need and will not accept — but for the reason I named in the first place.
I’m sure Cathy would welcome money for all the homeless cats out there, and there are people all over the country who need help. But please don’t do anything like this in our behalf. The sentiment is very sweet, and we’re very lucky to know such generous people, but we are fine.
May 10, 2009 — 6:57 pm
Robert Kerr says:
Been too busy to read BHB for months … now I wonder … did I miss something drastic?
Greg S., are you in trouble?
Can someone pls fill me in? KerrFinancial@gmail.com, if not here. Or point me to the relevant BHB posts (I’m so far behind)?
May 10, 2009 — 7:12 pm
Cheryl Johnson says:
It’s not just for you, Greg. This idea is big. You do get credit, though, for sparking the idea. 🙂
Teri is seeing the VRP idea as a way educate, raise money, and focus on stimulus plans that are fun, workable, informative, useful for individual communities.
On top of that, I’d like to build the thing out into another Active Rain. 🙂
People pay a small monthly fee ($3.99 or something like that) to have their own VRP blog sub-site …
We’d probably need some of your programming skills to pull something like that off.
But for right now, it is just a humble blog. The most recent post is a Battle of the Bands Challenge. If no one else posts a video of one of their local bands, I guess Cava wins by default.
May 11, 2009 — 4:06 am