Finding Financial Stability

With a new year I find the office staff and myself exploring new ways to improve our service and have an even more efficient and caring run organization.  We are most thankful to find ourselves in a stable financial situation, thanks to a very successful Artist Sale (again our thanks to Diane Shea).  We want to thank the Flynn’s for the checks that arrived from their event totally just under $4K, Megan’s birthday funding wish topped her $1K hope and my Fall for Soul event is still waiting on a few payments from clients, but is currently at $3500.  We saw some wonderful generosity at the close of the year from good friends and family so with Angie and Paul’s upcoming event we hope we can move forward with a few new prints for our collection and a large screen digital frame so that every single released child or parent can be viewed at all shows from now on.

I find myself needing to step back from photographing for Soul a bit, the toll of so many new friends that are likely to be lost is mounting.  I am more grateful than ever for the photographers that volunteer for Soul.  I work daily for Soul in many ways and will of course continue to be a photographer for our families but in order to move forward and do my best it seems that I need to be careful.  I keep an eye on each shoot as its completed and have to say I see so many amazing photographs coming through for our families.  I hope to go with Sarah Mattingly to the Tay Sacks Conference in Florida but we are still looking for frequent flyer mileage donation to make that a reality.  The trips to the cabin help me maintain a stable and loving attitude and give me some time find my balance.

We have a board meeting coming up and the office staff is working to set the dates for the annual photographers meeting and the album making work party.  I will let you know when these are set as this year we will have a dessert reception for the photographers and may need volunteers with pastry skills.  For the very important album making party we will need people who are skilled craftsmen and who work well with paper and precision tasks.  That day long event is really wonderful.  We will be looking for donations of beautiful papers to cover the albums and are thankful to our dear friends the Sasanume’s from Japan who have sent incredible paper for the albums.  We also need a few skilled trifold makers to step forward before the album making party as we will run out before we reach the date of the party.  I know many of you have helped in the past by making them at home so if you have any free time please call, 206-297-0885 and we will get things ready for you to work at home. Lew is going to be setting up a broader volunteer base.  If you feel you have skills and time you would like to offer please call or email to get your name in the records.

I want to thank Susan Tarling and her friends in Edmonton for the beautiful birthday cards.  We try to send one to families the year after we take their photos, whether they survive or not.  The cards are really beautiful and have one of the clients photos on the card.  Its always something that is hard to word correctly since we don’t always have information as to whether the celebrant is still living but we hope that each family receives theirs with all good wishes, realizing that our hearts are with them in either case.

Now onto the chores of the weekend.  I see a lot of cards have been left for me to sign.  When I feel a bit lazy about that task I think of the book, “Mountains Beyond Mountains” and remember the author describing how he hand wrote all the thank you cards for his donors.  Its something that makes Soul special with all the hand made efforts and hand written notes so I don’t want to be less than enthusiastic when it comes to the details.  In love and peace, Lynette