Gingerbread House Festival

Has anyone heard of or been to the Gingerbread House Festival before? Eric Dowdle, the folk artist, is the founder. Every year people make gingerbread houses to donate which are shown at the barn at Thanksgiving Point. They then have an auction and the houses are "sold" to the highest bid. All the money earned goes to children's charities. I make a house for this every year. It is so much fun. I had my scout group do it too (just for you Michelle), and it was one of our funnest activities. It also go them thinking about helping others. I love going and seeing all the houses that other people make and donate and get ideas for my own. This year it will be November 9th through 13th. Committment forms should be filled out by October 21st, but they are not real strict on that because they want as many houses as they can get. You can get forms and more information at www.gingerbreadfestival.org. (Sorry I don't know how to do links)




These were a couple that we did last year. I did a nativity scene. I poured chocolate molds and then did a stable. The good thing is you can make it as simple or extravagant as you like. Last year I ran out of time so didn't get to do as much as I wanted, but it still turned out okay.

Is anyone interested in this? Perhaps we could get together and do a house as a group. Let me know if you are and I will try to put something together.

Secretaries R Us

Well, all my life I've had secretarial/administrative assistant/office manager jobs. As a kid instead of playing with dolls, I played with clipboards and papers. So when a friend called and told me she needed some help I offered. She intived me to a meeting and I went to see what I could do. At the end of the meeting it was proposed that I become the secretary of the Epilepsy Association of Utah ( www.epilepsyut.org ). I think this will be a good thing right now. It will give me a lot of information and access to people I wouldn't otherwise have so that I can get help for Jessica. I hope that I can do it with everything else that is going on in my life. It is a very small group of people who are running the program right now, so it seems like it shouldn't take up too much time. I am happy to help out any way I can.
The first big thing I will help with is the "Crop Because You Care"
Scrapbooking Event that will happen sometime in February. It takes place at the Southtowne Expo Center. I will post more information as soon as the date it set. The registration money goes to fund the programs that are in place such as Summer Camps, etc.
One thing we are trying to do is get some government and/or public funding. Right now we are really small (7 board members), so if you know anyone who is interested or willing to help us out please let me know. We talked last month about finding someone who would be able to write up the paperwork for finding us grants, and trying to make the association more noticeable (through advertising, etc.).

So I'm just wondering:
Is there anything you are interested in enough to be on the board?
Do you have any ideas for fundraisers?
What kinds of things would you expect this kind of association to provide?