Phil James: Testing, testing, testing, testing
Phil James: Alexa, stop timer.
Phil James: Hello, dear! Hello!
Phil James: And so, Rice.
thank you.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: Good morning.
Phil James: Andy. How are you?
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: Good! How are you
Phil James: good.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: happy New Year? And you.
Phil James: I see less has appeared virtually
Phil James: all virtual.
Phil James: Huh! Heard
Phil James: my Facebook inbox
Phil James: haven't heard from anybody else is coming or not coming
Les Wright: up.
Phil James: there's less.
Les Wright: Hello! Hello! There we go!
Les Wright: Stepping away from my origin here
Phil James: does not look work safe to me.
Les Wright: No? Well, I guess it depends where you work. I was. Gonna say, it's bathhouse. It's not a problem.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: Yeah.
Phil James: I would expect Mel to appear. We talked texted yesterday about
Phil James: us, the 3 of you, you lass, me and Mel
Phil James: having another meeting after this meeting, so I think he's going to be here. But I don't see him so
Phil James: we can still get started. We never know who's gonna appear. I really want to see Nick again. I want to ask him about
Phil James: the international front. But we'll catch up with him.
Les Wright: Well, I will email him if he doesn't come today. And also
Les Wright: The last time I spoke with Gary was, and he said he had hoped to come in December what was definitely coming in January. and I didn't. I would send him a reminder, except I didn't realize it was happening until yesterday. Yeah, I usually send the reminder out earlier. You mean Gary Turner?
Les Wright: No. Gary was in the executive director of the Leather Archives Museum. Oh, okay.
Les Wright: The our archive person contact.
Phil James: Okay.
Phil James: I can. Is he part of our group? Is he in our group.
Les Wright: you know.
Les Wright: I'm not sure if you can
Phil James: let me go. Look, let's see if I can
Phil James: list of Members Member request
Phil James: in any case I can reach out to him, too. Oh, here's okay. Here's the members. Okay.
Les Wright: Oh.
Phil James: members.
Phil James: Church. Gary.
Les Wright: yeah. Yeah. Well, I Facebook found him. Let's see if he's a member.
Phil James: Gary a wasden.
Phil James: Okay, at least I know how to spell. His name was Dan. Yeah.
Phil James: I can reach out to him, too, and just kind of as another
Phil James: person.
Phil James: In. Invite him and remind him when they are so cool.
Les Wright: Yeah, Andy, so good to see you today and good to see you, too.
Les Wright: I'm I imagine you're well practiced at boring committee meeting.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: I've been in a few.
Phil James: I would think, at least in my estimation compared to most of the meetings I've had in my professional life.
Phil James: This is more interesting than most.
Les Wright: Oh, yeah.
Les Wright: yeah, II used to hate when I was.
Les Wright: and Academia committee meetings and faculty meetings. I mean, they're kind of like a ritual, you know. They went on forever. Nothing was ever accomplished
Les Wright: but you had to show up. And
Phil James: yeah, I had a when I my last job, my last corporate job, I had a good. I ended up getting really good friends with somebody who used to live here moved to New Hampshire, chasing a girl.
Phil James: But he and I would have our little side conversation and
Phil James: So that was fun. I miss seeing him. But
Phil James: oh, well. I now love my life rather than
Phil James: find something, you know excruciating in my job.
Phil James: So have you talked to Nick about the international scene at all? Les. I know. Started a little side project.
Les Wright: Yeah, not in a while. I mean, I have. I have, you know, emailed with him a couple of times about it. And you know, last time I talked to him he said, you know there are individuals,
Les Wright: who are not aware of each other
Les Wright: in different places around the world, and he was
Les Wright: intending to move forward, but
Les Wright: with connecting them.
Phil James: Okay? And then you reached out to. Was it the head of? Was it the Swiss bears you talked to
Phil James: somebody involved in the part of the Swiss bears, or
Les Wright: oh, oh, no! Let's see, would have been the Xxl Club in London, which has been going on since.
Les Wright: I don't know late, I guess early early nineties. Yeah, right?
Phil James: Which was a suggestion also from Nick that
Phil James: Nick wanted the committee to talk to him. But it shouldn't be Nick. So that's good that you
Les Wright: and and that was kind of what you know. Put the to be in my bonnet about, you know, getting on with getting, you know, doing.
Les Wright: doing the interview, recording, doing recorded interviews.
Les Wright: I don't want to leave them hanging, either.
Phil James: Right? Well, you and I or you, Mel, and I will do
Phil James: So we bought a subscription to what turns out to now be the script because they bought squadcast. So
Les Wright: it's actually squadcast that we'll use.
Phil James: You should see like a meeting invite from Squadcast. But let's you and I practice that, and we bought a single license to that. So I need to at least
Phil James: start meetings. And you know, eventually I see Mike has appeared. Yay, eventually we'll you know. We'll use
Phil James: our new nonprofit status money when we have it, and we'll buy some more licenses, and we'll just get you a license. But
Phil James: next time, you know, let's you and me practice, are you, me and malpractice with that software? As you said, you could get in the invite which I sent yesterday. So that's good.
Les Wright: Yeah. I got that clicked on that. And it goes through it. Yeah.
Phil James: okay, so that's the squad. Mel has to remind me about once a month.
Phil James: Like, why did we buy the script. Oh, that's right, because they bought squadcast.
Phil James: Now Mel is familiar with broadcast.
Phil James: He's versant in it
Phil James: but that doesn't help you and me so. But I mean, it's kind of like zoom in terms of you create a meeting and invite people to it. And then people log in
Phil James: our license allows up to 10 simultaneous people in meetings. So
Phil James: we've got that started squad can't be scripted.
Les Wright: Okay, I will be right there.
Phil James: We will practice that
Phil James: morning, Mike.
Phil James: Oh, Mike, are you here in the Bay area?
Mike Hernandez: Yeah.
Phil James: okay.
Phil James: welcome.
Phil James: So I have next on my agenda.
Phil James: Did you get my? I sent you a text message, my physical address, which we'll use for
Mike Hernandez: nonprofit status, for now you got that I can't remember. Can you send it to my phone. We've got some new requirements. I can get the articles drafted. I'm assuming Les is gonna sign them
Mike Hernandez: that would make sense. Okay, les, do you have any electronic signature
Mike Hernandez: no, I don't. Then I'll go ahead and send them to you through. We've got a program at work. I will text you and let you know it's coming.
Mike Hernandez: But there's apparently a new.
Mike Hernandez: There are new banking laws that require us to file documents because our non profit status is pending to ensure that
Mike Hernandez: we're not operating as a money laundering operation. We got 90 days post filing to do that.
Les Wright: I found out that there's
Mike Hernandez: there's a company that has a lawyer who's doing all of that regularly
Mike Hernandez: regulatory stuff, and I need to get a quote. I'm more than happy to advance it, assuming it's less than
Mike Hernandez: 500 bucks. If it's more, I'll circle back around
Mike Hernandez: with the expectation of being reimbursed after money comes in. But the folks who are out of pocket and are in line before me
Mike Hernandez: should get reimbursed first.
Mike Hernandez: So you gotta start. You guys gotta start thinking about a board of directors. And who's going to be on the board?
Mike Hernandez: Cause? That's then that's the next thing that needs to happen and needs to happen quickly after we file the articles.
Les Wright: Great? Yeah.
Phil James: okay, I just texted you. Mike, my physical address. So we can use that for filing. And that's generous of you to
Phil James: fund the filing. If if that's a problem, then I can do it instead, I feel like I'm retired now.
Mike Hernandez: which means money means nothing to me.
Mike Hernandez: We'll circle back around cause I mean, if it was something that had been going on for a while I could figure it out. But this is brand new. And I talked to a
Mike Hernandez: a corporate attorney on a different matter last week, and she's freaking out. So if she does it full time. And she's freaking out. I need to get somebody who
Mike Hernandez: we need a layer protection.
Phil James: Yeah, great.
Phil James: Okay, that's a that's a certainly that's a reasonable expense.
Phil James: and then I've only funded things like our wiki and our well, I have a zoom account a full zoom account now.
Phil James: which I use mostly for these meetings. we have the
Phil James: drops
Phil James: script.
Phil James: and we have a couple of other recurring expenses. The week is like $20 a month. That's really the expensive one.
Phil James: but I'm trying to keep track of all those. So we've got a we've got a list.
Phil James: and you know somebody other than me will end up being
Phil James: treasurer.
Phil James: and we'll get all that stuff to them. Great. So, Mike, what else do you? What else do you need in terms of the nonprofit?
Phil James: Approach.
Mike Hernandez: We jest need the the board so that I can file the
Mike Hernandez: statement of information and the documents that need to go to the California Attorney General.
Phil James: Okay, last will.
Phil James: Less will sign initial papers.
Phil James: Great.
Mike Hernandez: Okay? And is that one of the things that would they would. We'd get a physical copy would come to me because I'll have the address of record. I'm E filing it so any notifications will go to you.
Mike Hernandez: I'm assuming that since I'm the since I'm the agent for service process.
Mike Hernandez: I'm sure that I can get documents email to me. But if there's an issue I'll let you know. And that way, if they're going by mail to your house. And they're coming by email to me. That's 2 of us who are
Mike Hernandez: jumping all over it. Great.
Phil James: Okay, yeah, I'll watch out for that. And I'll report back into the Facebook
Phil James: Central Committee Message group there. So
Phil James: great.
Phil James: hey, Gary, good morning. I see you there
Gary Turner: morning.
Les Wright: The group is now big enough. We were talking about Gary, and it wasn't you, Gary, we were talking about. We're talking about another Gary
Les Wright: people that have more interesting background wallpaper than me.
Phil James: Andy is obviously on some adult film set.
Les Wright: I'm I'm preparing for the interviews. I've gotta let pizza. I didn't order pizza.
Phil James: I've got a list of people to ask you if they're there or not.
Phil James: Great
Phil James: les, let's circle back to you on the anything we should
Phil James: anything on the I think of it as the leather archives and museum.
Phil James: item. But let's really think of it as like this group's future archive.
Phil James: We're gonna talk to the head of the leather archives and museum and kind of finalize that right? That's my thought. Okay.
Les Wright: yeah. And yeah, the the next step where Gary and I left it was he was going to attend
Les Wright: of their history zoom session on. and and it also spoke. You know we are wanting to.
Les Wright: you know, as we set ourselves up legally aligned with the, you know, to make it a smooth transition. For for the letter archives to take us on.
Phil James: Great. Okay. Let's talk to him in a in a specific meeting. Great?
Phil James: I just wanna mention here. Thanks, les
Phil James: les. And I had a conversation.
Phil James: we really wanna get moving on the interview. So I feel like we're now all set for that. We've got software. We've got a list of 60 people we want to interview.
Phil James: I posted a little. I posted the meeting announcement in our group
Phil James: and invited people. Hey? If you're not on the list, which you might not know if you're on the list or not, because we're not going to tell you.
Phil James: Let's, you know, go gather your friends. I'm gonna make a separate post both
Phil James: in our group, but focused on that and in my Facebook page about that, and see if we can get more people who are interested in being interviewed. And then, bless, that's you and me, or you, me and Mel set up some time to do some
Phil James: interviews, and I'll do my best to make sure they're recorded. interviews. great
Phil James: And then I made note here.
Phil James: Oh, okay. And then this the meeting the meeting invite has a link to the wiki where the interview information is kept
Phil James: the the model release, as Andy would call it, the model release and just a list of questions. So we got that.
Phil James: And then next item Andy talked about is, I called it La Based interview workshop.
Phil James: It's something that this group might consider for our
Phil James: bigger
Phil James: attempt at gathering information. So thanks again for that, Andy.
Phil James: we should talk about that some more.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: Sure
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: at at what? What point? At at a future point? Or.
Phil James: yeah, II think. And les, what do you think, but I think
Phil James: we should finish. Cut it well.
Phil James: financially. I really want to get the the nonprofit going so that we can start asking for money so that I can start getting repay. That's on my agenda.
Phil James: And then, obviously, if Mike is putting in money, too, we want to get that repaid, and then
Phil James: less, you know, funded the domain name. You know, if less is going to P town again this coming year
Phil James: if we want to. Oh, les, you had your housing fell through for that right
Les Wright: right right
Les Wright: so. And and I had
Les Wright: I put out the I had asked.
Les Wright: I'm blanking on Sean Simmons. who is one of the the pre-time bear crew. He's he's been our contact.
Les Wright: and I put that question out to him that if anyone there could come up with the suggestion for either free or cheap housing for Bear week.
Les Wright: and I'm still waiting for him to get back about both that and about setting up an interview with
Phil James: okay and again. So with now with
Phil James: we'll be able to invite up to 10 individual people to be on separate audio tracks
Phil James: to record a video. Remember, that was video or audio. Remember, we talked about that before is if we have them all in one room. That's going to be bad for recording. But
Phil James: you know Zoom is not great either, so
Phil James: I think we're we're on the cusp. We're getting ready for that. So great. So, Andy, I think once we it's once we say.
Phil James: well, we have.
Phil James: You know we can. The group can fund less going to a couple of events.
Phil James: and and or, you know, just money is on the on the verge of coming in, and you know, somebody like I could fund
Phil James: some money for less to go to places, whatever it is. Then we'll know.
Phil James: we can use that.
Thank you.
Phil James: Mike is sending me porn.
Phil James: Oh, it's just typos. Okay? So thanks again, Andy.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: Sure, great thanks.
Les Wright: Well, I think we should je deputize anyone here who is going, for example to IML. To
Les Wright: to do interviews and to you know, via be a presence.
Phil James: Yeah, Iml is on our list. So is Folsom. I think that was a mic suggestion.
Phil James: Folsom. 2024, I would say. Also, Dory Ally
Phil James: is a harder core group of people. We might get
Phil James: better, you know wholesome is such a spectacle.
Les Wright: So yeah.
Phil James: good idea. Okay.
Phil James: Les. I mentioned in our agenda. You're seeking bare Dvds. So you sent me a list.
Phil James: which I think we have most of those in our wiki, but I'll double check that, and then somebody else sent you on that message thread. Somebody sent you
Phil James: a list which you were happy on. So did you find there are things on that list that I sent you
Les Wright: worth things from that other person's
Les Wright: list. which I added to the list. I had already started myself.
Les Wright: And, as I said before, I mean, I had a whole bunch of bare Dvds which are out of print, not in the Imdb base
Les Wright: which I sent to Cornell. They're not
Les Wright: catal, you know. They don't turn up on the online catalog. So I don't know if you know what where they are.
Les Wright: Right. So it's the they're in a, you know. They're in Box 14 or whatever right? Okay, but they're not. But they're not marked, you know, identified as being in it anywhere.
Phil James: Alright, I'll mark as an action item. I'll go back and make sure things that are on that single list are in our wiki. I haven't. I haven't compared
Phil James: that list.
Phil James: The one you sent originally, I think I looked at. And I said, Oh, we have some of these. But I'll look again at those. So thanks for that. okay, so the other things that we're already on the agenda is
Phil James: our membership. Numbers are a hundred 46.
Phil James: We have a hundred 46 people on our list.
Les Wright: Excellent!
Phil James: Excellent! So again. Here's to you, Les, who, you know, guided the group from the start of
Phil James: you have the single vision of this is what's needed. This is what we're going to do. This is what's missing from the universe.
Phil James: And you know the number of times I refer back to our mission statement, and I just think we never revisit that it's like, well, this is what we're going to do. And this is who we are. So that spring, like Athena, from your forehead.
Phil James: So thanks for that. And we're off and running.
Phil James: I think we do want to start thinking about beyond Facebook.
Les Wright: What else do we want to do. Just I know there are people out there who just don't use Facebook or don't use it regularly. So yeah, people don't use Facebook anymore. Yeah.
Phil James: I see nods from Gary. So it must be true. Yeah.
Phil James: Okay, great.
Phil James: Gary. By the way, I'm going to teach another genealogy class through the
Phil James: Project open house. So watch for those email
Phil James: cool. But you know everything I was gonna say, but anyway, that'll be up there.
Phil James: Okay. The last thing on the agenda had already put is the next meeting.
Phil James: If I've done the date right, it's gonna be Saturday, February tenth.
Phil James: unless I've transposed the calendar wrong, I'm gonna go look, but
Phil James: that's what I have down. So that'll be the next regular monthly meeting.
Phil James: Les, let's you and I do. Yeah. So Saturday, February tenth, is the second
Les Wright: Saturday and February.
Phil James: and then that's what our meeting will be. I'll put out an announcement between now and then, Les, that's you and me or you, me and Mel
Phil James: do a demo thing with
Phil James: Squadcast. In fact, we could do that right after this.
Les Wright: I've been feeling we're not gonna have a really long meeting here.
Phil James: And does anybody else have anything new for the agenda for today?
Phil James: Les anything from you?
Les Wright: yeah, I will only share the
Les Wright: I had lined up. I'd been invited to go to the North American bear
Les Wright: kind of a convention or rendezvous, or whatever it's called in in Lexington, Kentucky.
Les Wright: and I've had to cancel going because of, you know, because of the vermin problem. But they are looking forward both
Les Wright: to the founders and organizers doing an interview and also doing kind of a round Robin interview discussion with
Les Wright: several of the title holders.
Les Wright: and I didn't even know this was happening. So this is all new to me.
Phil James: And do you know, I'm I'm going through our wiki. Do you know, if we link to them in our list of the universe.
Les Wright: I don't think so.
Phil James: It seems like Kentucky would have stood out to me. So have an online.
Les Wright: They they rotate last year they were in Orlando.
Phil James: You think it's the North American bear. Something
Phil James: we have.
Phil James: North America. Nab weekend mean bears 15 this year is mean bears.
Phil James: Yeah, and pink is pink is the color
Phil James: but is that light pink or dark pink? Okay.
Les Wright: so this is my pink. Yeah.
Phil James: I will link to them from our wiki. Okay, NAB
Phil James: and A B weekend.
Phil James: Okay, great link.
Phil James: It's A, I like that cross pollination, because in theory we might get some members of this group from that group because
Phil James: we lifted to. We lifted.
Phil James: We cross linked to them so I don't see that. Oh, they've got a sponsor. Kentucky Bourbon bears.
Les Wright: Yeah.
Phil James: you know, I think there are, only there are only like 6 models who do
Phil James: every club announcement ever in the universe. I don't see that they have a Facebook
Phil James: page in and of themselves. Do you?
Phil James: You know, I see the contest?
Phil James: Okay, so we'll link to their
Phil James: event. E page
Phil James: contact info
Phil James: Adam. Blah, blah, blah, okay, I'm not seeing a Facebook
Phil James: page listed for them.
Phil James: Okay, great. Mike, I have a question for you, which is, and you're you're mute at the moment.
Phil James: What should we be thinking of for a board of directors? What position should we be thinking of, or is that totally up to us?
Mike Hernandez: Well, I think you O, you only need a a president, treasurer, and secretary for corporate compliance. If you want a VP. You can throw in a VP.
Mike Hernandez: Everything else you can form committees. Once you've got the initial board
Phil James: and those 3 share those 3 chairs should be separate people.
Mike Hernandez: Yes.
Phil James: okay. And then we would delegate
Phil James: roles to other people like I would think of Nick as Mr. International, but that doesn't.
Phil James: He's kind of shying away from. He doesn't want to be the British Empire bear
Phil James: imposing, you know. Well, here I'm gonna organize international because you know, the sun never sets on
Mike Hernandez: British. No, I mean, here's the deal, the the board position she pretty much steered that shit.
Mike Hernandez: and the whole purpose of that is just to ensure we've got corporate compliance. We're keeping annual minutes. Things of that nature, what we've been doing Round Table
Mike Hernandez: pre incorporation just create committees
Mike Hernandez: and those committees report to the board and the board votes and makes the decision.
Les Wright: Okay? And a question on that we can incorporate without becoming a
Les Wright: membership
Les Wright: organization. Correct, we are not gonna be a membership organization. Given that those types of structures you lose control immediately.
Phil James: Great. great thanks. Mike.
Phil James: Gary, anything from you.
Phil James: Nope, okay. Andy. Anything else from you?
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: I mentioned it before, but the the lavender effect is doing a Oral history project on queer love.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: And so if you know of any long, lasting couples or thruples
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: in relationships we would love to have the bears represented in that queer love collection.
This is an oral history project that's being funded
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: by the California Community Foundation. So ideally it would be California community members. LGBT, couples.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: But there's no restriction. We could. We can go outside of California. So if you know of anybody, any couples, any triples any relationships that you think
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: really stand out and are iconic of the bear community. Please let me know I'd love to contact them.
Phil James: Great feel free to either post. Something to the
Phil James: fair history project. International.
Phil James: The word international always has to be in italics.
Phil James: added sparkly, as part of our name. For you either post something or oh, thanks, Gary, for that.
Phil James: Either post something, Andy, or if you if it seems like you'd rather it came from somebody kind of more central.
Phil James: you know. Send me Bill James, just a note, and I'll post something on there.
Phil James: And then also I'll cross. I'll cross-post it to. I can think of several people who should be on that list. So I'll cross post it as well.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: Wonderful. Thank you.
Phil James: Slash. Ask, okay. anything else? Anybody?
Mike Hernandez: Nope.
oh.
Phil James: okay. So I have, as my burning agenda item is
Phil James: left, you and me
Phil James: doing a test of squad cast
Phil James: audio video capture and making sure both that we can get in and understand the interface.
Phil James: Number one, number 2
Phil James: that we're capturing at least audio and hopefully, video, and then number 3 will go to that parent company's site which is descript.
Phil James: which is the video
Phil James: editing. And you can interspersse
Phil James: stuff. And that's where Mel says, Oh, I can use my adobe magical blah blah blah, if we'd need to. But the script is built in. So if we wanted to add like, we're doing an interview. And then
Phil James: well, like some, like the Nab organization.
Phil James: they have a logo that we want to throw in the middle of the podcast we could do that easily using the descript. So
Phil James: I've done enough to look at. I've done enough damage by looking at the
Phil James: the tutorials for descript. So I would suggest we in a minute adjourn this meeting, and then last, you and me will go into a
Phil James: squadcast meeting. Okay.
Phil James: so, Gary, I sure I saw your 2 chat things.
Phil James: Great. I'm going to capture the okay. So Facebook Page, let me
Phil James: put that on my clipboard. Yes, that's done. That's got the same logo. So
Phil James: I'll add that to our sure that
Gary Turner: do you want me to also try and join your chat after this
Gary Turner: with Squadcast.
Phil James: Who's that asking? Because II made my oh,
Phil James: not necessarily. I mean, if you want to.
Phil James: you can. I really want Les to.
Phil James: I want to get left into this interface.
Phil James: and I want me to record it.
Phil James: And then I want to make sure where the recordings go. So that's kind of the flow. Les is thought because we had a discussion yesterday or day before.
Phil James: This is one of the things we will deputize people like, suppose, Gary, you're going to Dory Alley, and no one else is. you know, you would take your phone or whatever, and you would do an in interview. Once we have, you know, several licenses in the software.
Phil James: You would record a video or audio there as report around the scene.
Phil James: And then we'll get, we'll capture all those audio or video files centrally. And we'll have that as fodder for our podcast so yeah, we do eventually want other people
Phil James: deputized and involved, but doesn't need to be. Today. My focus today is on last so
Les Wright: and and also wanted to suggest, because based on my experience in Ptown last summer.
Les Wright: if and when we're ready to go is, I would. Is my advisable to be in touch with your organizers of the event, if possible, to be a part of the program, or, you know, listed as as people present.
Les Wright: So that
Gary Turner: people will be open to being interviewed instead of wondering who the hell is this nut case? Walking around with his phone as I'm on Team bear with the promised town bears.
Gary Turner: II will be keeping an eye on Shawn and pushing to see if there's anybody that can help host you for Ptown and 2024 even. I don't expect to be there, but II would like to. But it's I think it's real important that if you can, that you get there. It's it's a a rare event.
Gary Turner: and it's this year will be the 20 fourth year, and that that kind of
Gary Turner: amuses it and blows me away that we been going that long
Les Wright: well, and and also Bear Week has become like the premiere very event in the Us. And I know John Hernandez is.
Les Wright: you know, kind of making that, you know, kind of the bear bare World magazine version of New Year's Eve, where all the big stuff from magazines gonna be happening?
Gary Turner: Yes.
Phil James: great.
Les Wright: Hmm.
Phil James: okay. cool. I think that covers it for today.
Phil James: Les, that lets you and me go off to the squad cast. You still have the invite from yesterday. I do. Yeah.
Phil James: I'm I'm juggling 2 computers here. I'm moving from one computer to another. I've got 2 keyboards and 2 mice. So
Phil James: let me see if I can make this switch magically, but otherwise. thanks everybody. I think this was our most
Phil James: moving forward meeting that we've had. This is our. This was our most.
Phil James: Everything's moving forward.
Phil James: Meeting. So that's great. Gary, I'll point at you. Not that you know that.
Phil James: I wanna again. Do you know if you've seen any sales of
Phil James: chops. Key.
Gary Turner: I know you put together the new logo, and you know no, no, not yet. Actually, there is a a newer design that I've been chatting with less about that I kinda wanna refine.
Gary Turner: Let me see if I can share that with you guys
Phil James: do I need to let you share screen?
Les Wright: I'm gonna take off. I'll see you next time.
Gary Turner: I'm gonna allow you to. I'm gonna make you the host for a minute. Okay.
Phil James: so you should be able to share now.
Gary Turner: I'm
Gary Turner: I'm hunting for where I drop that artwork.
Phil James: Okay, I would. So the action item is, if once you get that finalized and you want it to replace what we have
Phil James: and you're putting out new T-shirts or new items that are based on that. Then I can put out a
Phil James: a, a note to people that, hey? We have a new design, you know. Go get a T-shirt help the help the organization
Phil James: found it. Haven't found it.
Gary Turner: Okay?
Gary Turner: I thought it was just gonna be able to share an image on the chat
Gary Turner: so that you could all save it.
Phil James: Oh, yeah, I. So I see.
Phil James: yeah, I've got your your nab. Facebook
Phil James: is in chat. And
Gary Turner: okay, this again. This II still need to. I still need to refine the bare
Gary Turner: outline. But this is kind of what I was looking for. Where, in in chatting with Les I.
Gary Turner: The idea was to kind of be inspired by the California State flag
Gary Turner: with a similar bear, but looking different like in a different direction, like, forward but but try to keep it simple, so that even if it's viewed in a smaller size and like, Oh, yeah, that must be them.
Gary Turner: But that's that's just it for the Bowen.
Phil James: Okay, I I took back host. And I'm gonna share that to this
Phil James: cool. Yeah.
Les Wright: So that would also make a nice flag.
Gary Turner: You're you're you're kind of weeding my mind.
Gary Turner: It's like a
Gary Turner: one of my one of my many interests.
Phil James: In fact, that's how I met Craig, the bear
Phil James: flag
Les Wright: designer. II have a story about him and
Phil James: the
Phil James: Delaware Dayton, Ohio police. I won't! I won't repeat that. Gary. Is there any significance to the 5 stars or the 9 trees?
Gary Turner: Actually it was the the trees were just to echo the line at the bottom of the California flag instead of a solid red or whatever color I figured. Okay, visually, just a simple line. And the stars were to include, instead of just one star like is included in the California flag. I just broad it out to 5 stars.
Gary Turner: Okay,
Phil James: someday we'll come up with. And this is what they meant. Well, yeah, it it exactly it. It's a it is an attempt to give us something a little bit more
Gary Turner: oriented toward us, being bears rather than just the text.
Phil James: great. Okay? And would you see? So would you keep our current logo as
Phil James: like this, like the the word mark, which is what we put into
Phil James: like a simple header, for you know I think of it as like for stationery. But this is this becomes our.
Phil James: as you say, this would be our flag and our tote bag version.
Gary Turner: Yeah.
Gary Turner: that's the idea for the moment. Yes.
Phil James: okay, when you think you
Phil James: there's not, there's no rainbow collars, and it's interesting.
Gary Turner: No? Well, that's that's that's intentional as well. The blue and the green are actually colors that are derived from Les's previous exhibit
Gary Turner: bare icons
Gary Turner: right? And and I chose those because they were
Gary Turner: a little bit different from the usual bare pride. Flag colors. However, the yellow is actually the blonde color from
Gary Turner: the bear. Pride flag as well as the brown of the bear, is from the brown of the brown of the bear. Pride flag. Great.
Phil James: Well, I suggest you write that all down. I'll go into my anthropologist genealogist mode. I suggest you write all that down. So that becomes part of our
Phil James: corporate lore.
Gary Turner: Okay, great. But when you think you're done, then.
Phil James: you know, go ahead and do your magical thing and make this available. As
Phil James: you know, the T-shirts and Keychain version, and then I will go buy some
Phil James: and we'll publicize the fact that they're available.
Gary Turner: Okay, sucker for those things.
Gary Turner: Oh, cool, very nice. Yeah.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: Arrow to the idea. Moving forward is really really
Gary Turner: well. The the idea was to include some hint of being
Gary Turner: part of or related to indigenous people, and that that thunderbolt is actually very
Gary Turner: American Indian, and more of the West Coast than anywhere else.
Andy Sacher, The Lavender Effect: Yeah, great. We're our own culture, almost right? You sure are yeah, and not straight.
Gary Turner: Yeah, no.
Phil James: Connecticut had a ad campaign.
Phil James: and they called it New England's Rising Star. And they had this shooting star across the horizon, and I have a friend who actually, I dated for a while, and he said, if you look carefully, you can see the Shooting star is already falling towards the ground. I'm looking at the stars, I'm thinking. Oh, yeah, but we're already fading into the no, not that.
Phil James: Okay, I think we can conclude this meeting. And, Les, let's you and me at least go off to the
Phil James: the squad cast
Les Wright: attempt and do a little recording there. Yeah. And just one last thing I wanted to add, because I talked with Gary about about the flag. Is that
Les Wright: Even though we are, have now become international. The bears did start in San Francisco. And I think it's appropriate that San Francisco California sensibility
Les Wright: as our roots makes perfect sense. Yeah.
Phil James: yeah. Reminds me of the the stand up, bear that used to greet you at the entrance to the Lone Star. You know the Big, the bear with the that was a
Phil James: whether the not a Jack Pritcher who who designed that
Phil James: some cartoonist did the bear bear, standing up with a
Les Wright: dying of beer. Yeah.
Phil James: stood outside the Lone Star. So part of our history.
Gary Turner: Exactly.
Phil James: Thanks, folks.
Phil James: We'll see you in February and then left. I'm gonna
Phil James: close this meeting.
Phil James: and I'll go find the squad. Cast
Phil James: thing and open that meeting.
Gary Turner: Alrighty, thank you. Take care, take care, bye, have a great 2024 to everybody.
Gary Turner: You, too. Thanks, Andy.