October 28, 2011 Friday - Part 1

Surfrider Foundation Marin's 2012 Surf Calendar

The main thing on my mind this morning was the Surfrider Marin's 2012 Surf Calendar - a fundraiser for our chapter. Yesterday the two personal/test copies I ordered online from Tidelines arrived and they looked great. Above is a photo of the cover, "After the Rain" by Nick Allen. I was so excited. Today I was taking them to Bolinas show them off to the crew.

The calendar was my latest project and I had been working on it for a month. We did one last year that contained mostly my photos, and through our usual unorganized style we didn't get out it until February of this year, thus missing the holiday season when most everyone buys a calendar for the coming year. Though it was great, we didn't sell many and lost money on the project. This year we were determined to have the calendars ready to sell by Thanksgiving.

For three months I had solicited photos via Surfrider's monthly newsletter. Response was good - ten people (including three professional photographers) submitted 64 photos. I formed a committee to boil the selection down to the thirteen best images (twelve months and one cover). The committee of four consisted of photographers Nick Allen, Walt Denson, surf shop owner Will Hutchinson and myself. Via a few rounds of email voting the committee came up with its final selection - a good mix of five surfing shots, four photos of Marin's coastline and four ocean-theme paintings. Since we were going the sell the calendars, my next task was to obtain written permissions to use images. A task easier said than done. I spent hours blasting out emails tracking down the photographers and the artists for their permissions.

The Bolinas crew loved the calendar and I picked up orders for fifteen. Drew at 2-Mile ordered six. After my session I drove to Stinson to connect with Scott the chairman of the Surfrider Marin chapter. He loved the calendar and immediately started making suggestions for improving it - like including Surfrider meetings, beach cleanups and other events in the calendar portion of each month. He committed to getting me the dates for all meetings and beach cleanups. Scott also brought the legal question. Tidelines in their agreement section state that they own all photos submitted to them. We couldn't agree to that but we didn't want to delay production of the calendars. Our solution was to order the calendars and follow up with an email stating we don't agree with their rights provision.

While at Stinson I received orders from John who owns the Parkside Café and artist Michael Knowlton who was the curator of Surfrider's Ground Swell art show at the Bay Model. Luck was with me, photographer Clint Graves happened by and I was able to obtain his permission to use two of his photos that the committee had selected.

It was a good morning. Reaction to the calendar was encouraging. Scott and I were confident the calendar would sell and we agreed to order 100, which was a big investment for a small non-profit organization.

Update - as of January 29, 2012 we had placed a second order of 100 and then a third order for 50. We have sold over 230 calendars, given away ten free copies and only have a few left. Our calendar project has been a success.