Letitia Byrd, left, and Molly Dobson at Tuesday's Washtenaw Community College Foundation Women's Council lunch. Byrd was one of three honorees at the event. Dobson is a previous honoree. (Photos by the writer.)

Murmurs in the room showed that many of them did. About 300 people – mostly women – attended Tuesday’s luncheon of the WCC Foundation Women’s Council, where Byrd, Bettye McDonald and Marianna Staples were honored for their contributions as community leaders. The annual lunch raised about $25,000 for student scholarships and WCC’s Student Resource and Women’s Center.

Defying expectations and breaking stereotypes was a theme throughout the event, highlighted in a speech by Jean Jennings that took the audience through a romp of her unconventional path to becoming the president and editor-in-chief of Automobile Magazine, based in Ann Arbor. The saga included tales of unshaved legs, drill bits, cab driving, crash testing cars and starting a publication “with Rupert Murdoch’s money.” Jennings began by noting that the lunch would be a great place to pick up chicks.

Honoring Women Leaders: Byrd, McDonald, Staples

Before getting to Jennings’ talk, the crowd heard from all three honorees and Anne Duffy, who received this year’s Women’s Council scholarship. Duffy described her 15-year struggle with Lyme disease, saying she was on her deathbed when the disease was finally diagnosed. It took her five years to gain back her strength and start focusing on her career – she’s now pursuing an associate’s degree in journalism, with about a year left until graduation.

Letitia Byrd was the first honoree to be recognized. Peg Talburtt – the event’s emcee and executive director of the James A. & Faith Knight Foundation – noted that Byrd “has dominated the Ann Arbor community for many, many years.” The comment drew laughs because Byrd, a former Ann Arbor schools educator, is known for her ability to recruit people to support local nonprofits. Talburtt also highlighted Byrd’s work with fellow educator Joetta Mial in addressing the achievement gap for African American students in Ann Arbor schools. Their initial data collection set in place efforts that are still underway at the school district, Talburtt said.

In her comments, Byrd began by noting her sadness at the recent death of civil rights leader Dorothy Height, who had hired Byrd decades ago to work at the Delta Sigma Theta headquarters in Washington D.C. – that’s where she met her husband, David R. Byrd.

They later moved to Ann Arbor, and Byrd described the difficulties in getting housing and jobs at that time because of racial discrimination. Her husband was recruited in the mid-1960s to the newly founded Washtenaw Community College, she recalled, where he was asked to head the construction technology program. WCC hadn’t yet been built, she said, and the biggest attraction was the apple orchard located right where they were seated for the luncheon – at WCC’s Morris Lawrence Building. Byrd said she was glad to have been involved in the Women’s Council since its inception, and was pleased to continue supporting its goals.

Bettye McDonald, left, talks with Molly Dobson and Gloria Thomas at the May 11 WCC Foundation Women's Council lunch.

Talburtt introduced the next honoree, Betty McDonald, a retired Ann Arbor Public Schools administrator whose volunteer work has included leadership in the Ann Arbor Community Center, the Packard Clinic, Ann Arbor YMCA, Washtenaw Red Cross and many other nonprofits.

Talburtt described McDonald as “a force – just ask her sons and husband!” Her sons are Kevin McDonald of the Ann Arbor city attorney’s office, and Frederick McDonald II, chair of the WCC Foundation board. Bettye McDonald joked that her son’s influence on the board was the reason why she received this recognition. She described Letitia Byrd as her mentor, and said she hoped to continue helping young people get involved in the community through their work with local organizations and boards.

The third honoree, Marianna Staples, told the audience she felt humbled by the work of Byrd and McDonald, adding “I’ve got a couple of years left so maybe I can do some more things too.” She told the story of her father, a German immigrant who arrived in America with no money and no ability to speak English, but whose hard work and determination made him a successful businessman. Her parents never questioned that their children would go to college, so Staples and her brother never questioned it either, she said: “That’s what happens with expectations.”

Marianna Staples receives congratulations at the May 11 WCC Foundation Women's Council lunch.

Staples went on to receive a Ph.D. in French, and pursued her love of France by opening La Crêperie de la Chaumière, a former Ann Arbor restaurant, as well as teaching at Adrian College, where she continues to teach part-time.

She credits her husband, Ken Staples, with awakening in her a spark to contribute to the community. Together, they started an annual fundraiser for the Salvation Army, called The Festive Affair. Over the last 18 years the event has raised more than $2 million to support the Salvation Army and its Staples Family Center, a homeless shelter. She concluded her remarks by making a pitch for people to attend this year’s fundraiser, on Oct. 29 at Weber’s Inn. Helping the homeless find a place to makes it possible to find jobs and improve their lives in other ways. “I do believe that people can change their lives for the better,” she said.

A Serious Case of “Macho Woman Syndrome”

Last year’s guest speaker, Eastern Michigan University president Susan Martin, told rambunctious tales from her life that included slaughtering chickens and kicking down bathroom doors. It’s fair to say that this year, Jean Jennings kicked it up a notch from there.

Jean Jennings, president and editor-in-chief of Automobile Magazine: "If being a woman works to your advantage, don't be stupid – take it."

Jennings grew up with five brothers in New Baltimore, Michigan. Her father noticed she was a girl, Jennings joked, and advised her to be a waitress so she’d never starve: “He had high hopes for me.”

As a kid she didn’t tinker with cars like guys do, but she did view them as a way to something bigger, “which was to get the hell out of New Baltimore, Michigan!” She said she dated anyone who let her drive their car, and powered through high school to graduate when she was 15.

She went to the University of Michigan, but said life was crazy in 1971 and she was way too busy with anti-war protests to pay attention to studies. After three non-productive semesters, she quit school and started driving a cab. “My parents were horrified,” she recalled. “I was horrified.”

Wearing bib overhauls or a hippie skirt, smoking cigars, not bothering to shave her legs – “I was so cool!” – Jennings drove the occasional celebrity but mostly took in fares who were drug addicts or drunks. She was once robbed at gunpoint, and another time lugged a bleeding man up to his room where she cleaned out his wound with rubbing alcohol  – he screamed.

But after five years – which included overhauling the taxicab system in Ann Arbor, because that’s what women do, she said – it was time to move on, and Jennings took a job as a test driver at the Chrysler Proving Grounds near Chelsea. “Chrysler hired me because the government made them,” she said, as the crowd broke out in applause. “That’s pretty inspirational.”

The jobs for women weren’t challenging, and there was no opportunity for advancement, so Jennings started angling for a transfer. She lied, telling managers that she could weld so they’d hire her as a mechanic in the firm’s impact lab. It worked – “welding is just like sewing,” she says – and soon she was working with the guys, where “crash days were happy days.” She then told a story worthy of a Saturday Night Live sketch involving her long hair, a drill motor and bonding with male co-workers – The Chronicle can’t begin to do it justice, so we’ll leave it to your imagination.

While at Chrysler, Jennings also wrote newsletters for the UAW, which got the attention of the editor at Car and Driver magazine. [That editor was David E. Davis.] She wore jeans under her dress to the interview, which amused him, she recalled – and he hired her as a writer.

The organization had “severe testosterone poisoning,” Jennings said, and the first two years were difficult. She volunteered for every extreme assignment, from racing in the Baja 1000 to driving in a demolition derby, which she won. Then in 1985, she and Davis left Car and Driver to launch a competing publication, Automobile Magazine, started “with Rupert Murdoch’s money,” she said. It now has about four million readers.

Saying she has a serious case of macho woman syndrome, Jennings said that if you’re only half as good as the average guy, most men will think you’re a genius – “and it doesn’t take much after that to take over.”

She ended her talk with a few words of advice:

• If you’re having a shitty time, she told the audience, nobody cares, and you’re still having a shitty time – so you might as well have some fun.
• You can’t accept your rewards or punishments from other people – those need to come from you.
• If you’re hiring someone, make sure to hire someone better than you. They’ll make you look good.
• You can do anything, if you learn how to use the tools.
• If being a woman gets in your way, try to ignore it.

Finally, she said, “if being a woman works to your advantage, don’t be stupid – take it.”

Joel Goldberg

Visualize the Ann Arbor Art Center’s WineFest as the Châteauneuf-du-Pape of fundraisers.

The annual wine-and-food extravaganza, on tap May 6 through 8, bears a surprising resemblance to the multi-grape assemblage of the flagship wine from France’s southern Rhone, blending supporters of the century-old arts institution with a panoply of local glitterati out for some innocent merriment, plus a dollop of area wine cognoscenti keen to sample and acquire some hard-to-find bottles.

So it’s a good fit that Honorary Chair Laurence Féraud, the first French winemaker to chair WineFest, comes from first-tier Châteauneuf winery, Domaine du Pegau.

And just as some Châteauneuf producers (but not Pegau) have adapted their wines to changing customer preferences for early-drinking, more fruit-driven styles, so the 28th annual WineFest sports a different look from years past.

“We’ve thrown everything up in the air and had it come down in a new format,” says Art Center president Marsha Chamberlin. “It’s going to be this bright, colorful upbeat format in a very stylish location. We’re trying to make this an event that people can enjoy on lots of different levels.”

The makeover starts with new digs for Saturday evening’s main event: the former Pfizer facility on Plymouth Road, lately demedicalized into the University of Michigan North Campus Research Complex. Kalamazoo-based BIGThink arts collaborative will create a series of supersize installations designed to generate a sense of community throughout the space.

Hardcore bidders can hunker down for the live auction in a new, Vegas-style “bidders’ pit.” This way, explains Chamberlin, “people who aren’t into the auction don’t have to be forced to be quiet and sit and listen. They can enjoy the wine and food and each other, while the bidders can keep focused.”

Focus-worthy auction lots include two sets of Bordeaux out of the cellar of über-collector Ron Weiser, from the outstanding 1961 and 2000 vintages, a ten-bottle assortment of 1998 and 1999 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, donated by Honorary Community Chairs Rich and Karen Brown, and a ten-year collection of the ever-popular Marilyn Merlot.

Also on offer: a half-dozen travel packages, home-prepared meals by local chefs Craig Common and Scott MacInnis, and dinner at The Lark – with a bottle of 1989 Château Margaux thrown in.

On Thursday, May 6, Féraud will pour five of her wines for a Winemaker Dinner at Mediterrano. This will be the only chance during the weekend to taste two vintages of Pegau’s upscale Châteauneuf, Cuvée Laurence.

A sold-out “Wine Crawl” joins the weekend mix for the first time on Friday evening, May 7. Participants will start at the Art Center on Liberty Street to meet the Honorary Chair, then wind their way through a series of downtown drinkeries – Babs Underground Lounge, Café Felix, Gratzi, Mélange and The Chop House – sampling a small food and wine pairing at each.

Ticket pricing also receives a facelift, with the introduction of a second tier for Saturday’s event. The new General Admission ducat ($100) buys entry to the strolling supper, wine sampling and the rare wine bar, along with open seating at the live auction.

Those who spring for the Patron level ($200) receive the traditional WineFest perks, which include a custom wine glass and reserved seats for the live auction. They also get in the door an hour earlier for a reception with Féraud and an early-bird chance to snap up silent auction lots at “Buy It Now” prices.

Chamberlin said that signups were running about 50-50 between the two ticket levels.

Whether or not the new format and prices succeed in boosting interest in WineFest, many observers feel that change is long overdue in the face of a long-term slide in attendance and revenues for what was once the area’s premier charity event.

A decade ago, WineFest’s Saturday event regularly sold out more than 500 tickets and raised upwards of $250,000 for Art Center programs, representing as much as 1/3 of the organization’s annual budget.

This year’s take is projected at a mere $70,000, and the current rate of signups suggests that Saturday’s event may have difficulty reaching its goal of 400 paid attendees.

Chamberlin acknowledges that the Art Center has been forced to “wean itself off” dependence on WineFest for operating funds, and today counts on the event more to fund new projects.

The area’s economic travails account for a large chunk of the decline, especially in the area of corporate support, which Chamberlin says “has dried up.”

But critics also suggest that the event’s organizers failed to adapt to the proliferation of competing charity circuit wine events and a steady decline in the once-generous level of auction donations from left coast wineries and area collectors.

“No one was proposing anything new for years,” one WineFest insider put it succinctly.

“Part of the issue for me is whether there is an audience for WineFest any longer, in the form we currently know it,” Chamberlin said. “One of the things we’ve tried to do this year is create a broader appeal for it.”

Some of that appeal arrives in the person of the charismatic Laurence Féraud. I caught up with her while she multi-tasked at home in Châteauneuf-du-Pape, preparing a Thai green curry dinner for her two children as we chatted on the phone.

Féraud – petite, dark and intense, with a ready laugh and strong entrepreneurial bent – graduated from oenology school in Paris and returned to Châteauneuf as the region’s first female winemaker in 1986. A year later, she and her father, Paul, extracted their 17 vineyard acres from the Féraud family holdings to make their own wine under a new label: Domaine du Pegau.

She was in a celebratory mood when we spoke, saying she’d just signed “a big check” to purchase three additional acres in Châteauneuf, bringing Pegau’s current holdings to just over 50. Better still, the new vineyard comes planted with excellent vines, in the prime “La Crau” section of the appellation.

Our conversation (she’s bilingual) began with her family’s long-term ties to Ann Arbor, thanks to her father’s friendship with retired UM Professor J.C. Mathes and his wife, Rosemary, who began to spend summers in Provence about 35 years ago.

At almost the same time that Féraud and her father struck out with their own winery, Mathes begat J et R Selections to import southern Rhone wines into Michigan.

It was a match made in Provence.

Joel Goldberg: Tell me about your family’s history with J.C. Mathes.

Laurence Féraud: He’s a very close friend to us, like a member of the family. All of his life, he spent two months minimum in the south of France, and he was very close to the people. Then one day, he decided to import the wine.

[Robert] Parker started to speak about Châteauneuf-du-Pape – that was in 1992 – and everything expanded so fast. J.C. was our importer, and his business grew so fast. Like me, he was so happy about this increasing enthusiasm for Provence.

JG: You had your own property before you created Pegau, but you didn’t bottle wine under your name?

LF: I was studying, and my father worked with his parents and his brothers and sister; it was the family domaine. But when I arrived, I worked for one year with all the family, which was not very convenient for me [laughs]. So I proposed we create our own name.

JG: What does Pegau mean?

LF: It’s a clay wine pitcher. The original was found around the Pope’s palace [in Châteauneuf]. They did some excavations and some antique research; this clay pitcher is from the 14th century, from the Pope’s period.

JG: When you started out, you were the only woman running a domaine in Châteauneuf. Even though you had an education as a winemaker, was it hard for you to have people take you seriously?

LF: Yes, in the beginning it was a bit difficult. Sometimes the men clients wanted to visit only with my father. And my father really insisted; he said, “No, my daughter knows more than I do because she studied enology and she speaks English. He always tried to convince people to visit with me.”

Laurence Féraud, dressed for the harvest: Not her sister. (Photo courtesy of Laurence Féraud)

Also, I worked in the vineyard. At the beginning, the people – they didn’t laugh, but they said, “This is work for men.”

But I knew how to work in a vineyard, and dress like the men in the vineyard. But I also knew how to have a shower and how to be dressed like a woman, with high heels. When I come to an auction in Michigan, I know that I am not in a vineyard. So I am dressed different. I know how I have to be.

The people here, they didn’t understand that we can have a different face. When I am working during the harvest, making wine, picking grapes, because I have a scarf around my head, people would think I was Fatima. [roars with laughter].

Or people would say, “Oh, we met your sister at the wine fair.”

And I’d say, “No, I haven’t got any sister. It was me.” They were so shocked; they couldn’t believe it.

JG: So do you have any advice for women who are trying to make it in the wine business?

LF: My advice is to be strong, because we are better than men. [laughs]

No, our palate is quite developed, because for centuries we stay at home, we do the cooking, we have a sense of taste.

JG: There are many different grapes that can go into Châteauneuf-du-Pape. What blend do you use?

LF: It’s a blend of all the vineyards we have. About 45 acres of the vines are more than 45 years old.

There is already what we call co-planting. So the blend is already in the vineyard. Because 45 years ago, they planted blended. In fact, they still do.

The blend of Pegau is 80% Grenache, 15% Syrah, 4% Mourvedre and 1% mixed types of grapes.

JG: The newer properties you’ve bought in recent years, were those already planted?

LF: They were already planted, and in good condition, and in La Crau, in the best place. I can tell you that I paid more, but the result is the more I pay in the beginning, the less I have to work after. Because when you want good quality, a good vineyard will give you good grapes without too much working.

1990 Domaine du Pegau: Robert Parker started to speak. (Photo by the author)

JG: How many bottles of Châteauneuf do you make?

LF: I produce 80,000 bottles of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, the Cuvée Reservée, and 6,000 to 8,000 bottles of Cuvée Laurence.

JG: And Cuvée da Capo? [The estate’s top wine, made in small amounts in better vintages. The 2007 got a pre-release score of 98-100 points from Robert Parker.]

LF: When I do the Da Capo, I’m not doing the Cuvée Laurence. The Cuvée Laurence is easy to do every year; it’s an extra aging of the Cuvée Reservée. When it’s a perfect harvest and a perfect vintage, then I am doing the Cuvée da Capo, not the Cuvée Laurence. So the production is exactly the same.

JG: You also have a second line of wines under your own name.

LF: Starting in 2001 and 2002, I created another company called “Selection Laurence Féraud.” I’m not buying or producing wine, but I do the selection. I go to different cellars, different producers, I taste the different wines and I blend.

I created a Vin du Pays d’Oc [from the Languedoc] called “Pegau Vino,” and I have a Séguret [a less-known Rhone village].

“Plan Pegau” [a non-appellation table wine] existed under Domaine du Pegau, but the quality was not consistent. So I decided to have more consistent quality, and to blend in a big volume in another place. We could not do that at Domaine du Pegau.

I blend 50% of the Plan Pegau from the Domaine, with some other wine – enough to have the quantity for 60,000 bottles in one bottling. We sell that wine for export, with a screw cap.

JG: So you’re becoming a negociant? [merchants who buy wine produced by others and sell them under their own brand]

LF: If I look at my job name, it’s blender [laughs]. In French, we say assembleur, which is nicer.

JG: How many countries does Pegau distribute in today?

LF: Thirty countries, 80 wine importers around the world.

JG: What wines will you be pouring in Ann Arbor for WineFest?

LF: On the 8th, all the people will have a cocktail of Pegau Vino. Then we’ll have the Séguret, then the Plan Pegau, and then the Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Domaine du Pegau red.

JG: Are you serving either the Cuvée Laurence or Cuvée da Capo?

LF: Cuvée da Capo? For over 100 people? No, it’s impossible. [Roars with laughter] But what I’m giving for the auction is Cuvée da Capo in a magnum, three Cuvée Laurence, a weekend at a B&B I have in Châteauneuf, a day with me in the vineyards, and lunch or dinner at my place.

WineFest tickets are available at the website, or by phoning the Ann Arbor Art Center at 734-994-8004, x101.

About the author: Joel Goldberg, an Ann Arbor area resident, edits the MichWine website and tweets @MichWine. His Arbor Vinous column for The Chronicle is published on the first Saturday of the month.

Tim McKay, Vic Strecher, Clinch Steward (as Nicely-Nicely Johnson, Rusty Charlie, and Benny Southstreet) on stage at Tappan Middle School during a rehearsal of "Guys & Dolls."

“You’re not with props, are you?” a woman whispers to The Chronicle, soon after we enter the darkened auditorium at Tappan Middle School.

As we’re telling her no, a disembodied male voice calls out over the speaker system: “Spots! You’re going to do a Venn diagram on all three of them.” Spotlights flick on, directed toward three actors clustered on stage.

They vamp. “Spots, you’re not picking up each of them equally,” intones the voice, which turns out to be coming from the director, Mike Mosallam. Someone else yells: “They’re farther apart than we were told!”

It’s Sunday afternoon – Tech Day for the Burns Park Players, the time when technical glitches like these are worked out before “Guys & Dolls” opens on Feb. 5. The crew arrived around 9 a.m., followed by the 40 or so actors at noon.

They were set to log several hours doing “cue-to-cue” – an abbreviated run-through focusing on transitions of lighting and set – with a full show rehearsal starting at 4 p.m.

The Chronicle dropped by for part of this controlled chaos, joining local photographer Myra Klarman, whose behind-the-scenes shots captured some of the day’s activity. Enjoy.

Fourth graders from Burns Park Elementary School during a rehearsal of the Burns Park Players production of "Guys & Dolls." The annual play raises money for arts activities in the Ann Arbor Public Schools. More than 100 children are in this year's show.

Crew members set up additional lights backstage at the Tappan Middle School theater during a rehearsal for "Guys & Dolls," which opens Feb. 5.

Mike Mosallam is directing this year's production of "Guys & Dolls." His day job is director of film initiatives for Wayne County.

Costume crew member Matt Toschlog at the sewing machine during Tech Day on Sunday. Dress rehearsals are scheduled for every night this week.

One of the large puppets that become animated during the nightclub scene, featuring the song "A Bushel and a Peck." The set designers for "Guys & Dolls" are Mark Tucker and Jeri Rosenberg. Tucker is also the creative force behind the annual FestiFools parade.

Props crewhead Claudia Boschitz with her favorite prop. The character Adelaide, played by Eva Rosenwald, wears this after her bridal shower.

Eva Rosenwald as Adelaide and Joel Swanson as Nathan Detroit rehearse the number "Sue Me."

The Burns Park Players rehearse the crapshoot dance for "Guys & Dolls."

Performances are held in the Tappan Middle School theater, 2251 E. Stadium Blvd. on Feb. 5, 11 and 12 beginning at 7:30 p.m. On Feb. 6 and 13, the show begins at 4 p.m.

Tickets for reserved seats are available at Morgan & York, 1928 Packard St. and cost $15. They can also be purchased at the door.

Participants in the Cinema & Yoga fundraiser for the 48th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival take part in a sample class at the Ann Arbor School of Yoga. (Photo by the writer.)

Laurie Blakeney inhales, and so do the group of people sitting on the floor in front of her. She exhales, humming, “Ommm….”

After her voice trails off, the group in front of her does the same in a synchronized echo: “Ommm…”

The sound fills the high-ceilinged space, imbuing the atmosphere with something relaxing, spiritual. Filmable, even.

Blakeney, an instructor and owner of the Ann Arbor School of Yoga, is leading a sample class as part of a fundraiser for the 48th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival. The Chronicle dropped by for the Aug. 14 Cinema & Yoga event, which included a screening of films from last year’s festival after the yoga. It’s an example of something that the festival’s director, Donald Harrison, says they’re working hard to do: Finding creative, diverse ways to bring in money.

“This Is Your Root Structure”

Blakeney – a cheerful woman in a pink T-shirt and purple shorts (but no shoes – a standard state for students and visitors to the school, since bare feet are required in the classroom) – greeted the Cinema & Yoga participants as they arrived, clad mostly in T-shirts and shorts similar to hers.

They left their shoes on a wooden set of shelves near the door and entered the large, cool classroom. There, they laid down blue rectangular mats, along with folded blankets and wooden blocks slightly smaller than shoeboxes.

Tracy Briney, sitting cross-legged on her mat, explained that she’d come to the fundraising event because it combined so many things she loves. “I love film. I love yoga,” she said. “And they’re all here tonight.”

Briney also said that although she isn’t involved with the film festival otherwise, she supports “everything Laurie [Blakeney] does.” She said she’d been taking classes with Blakeney for eight years.

Susan Bellinson, another long-time student of Blakeney’s, said she was there for the film festival as well as the yoga. “I think it’s very important that the community support the arts, because the arts are important for quality of life.”

Susan’s husband Tom came along for the ride. “I’ve never done yoga before,” he admitted with a wry smile. “I’m just hoping not to have sore muscles.”

As she took her place on an elevated platform at the front of the room, Blakeney explained that the class wasn’t meant to be too strenuous. “The whole point of these sample classes is to have a taste, have a nice little stretch with each other,” she said.

Laurie Blakeney of the Ann Arbor School of Yoga (standing) instructs Ann Arbor Film Festival executive director Donald Harrison, Tom Bellinson and his wife Susan Bellinson during the Cinema & Yoga fundraiser for the film festival. (Photo by the writer.)

After the initial chanting at the beginning of the session, Blakeney guided her students through a variety of positions, using the blankets and blocks for support. They stretched, leaned, twisted, jumped, bent, balanced and breathed. Blakeney called out advice and encouragement:

“Try to drop your legs. Lift up through your chest.”

“Your foot can’t be like a little, tight bud. This is your root structure.”

Donald Harrison, the festival’s executive director, took part in the yoga. He told Blakeney about some tightness in his ankles, and she called out to him with tips on how to remedy the issue in different poses.

After an hour, they ended the class lying flat on their backs with their eyes closed and limbs spread. “Absolutely drop your brain to the back of your skull,” Blakeney instructed.

Food, Films, Fundraising

After the class ended, everyone headed to the basement to munch on a spread of crackers, hummus, carrots, cheese and more from Whole Foods – the store donated the food, according to Blakeney. “Donald [Harrison] and I like to go shopping together to buy the food for this,” she joked. “So, that’s why we do this.”

After the participants, still barefoot, finished their food, it was time for movies. Harrison gave a short introduction to the seven-film, one-hour program.

The festival has already received 600 submissions from 40 countries for next year. Last year, they received about 2,600 films for consideration, Harrison said. It’s also a qualifying festival for the Academy Awards.

“There’s not a lot of festivals out there that have that status,” Harrison said.

The films included “Dahlia” by Michael Langan, which offered a sort of stop-motion montage of San Francisco (flowers, people, parking meters). Then there was Peter Rose’s transillumination study, which showed various spaces – like building entryways and caves – lit in segments. Other films were less abstract and more documentary-style: Nicole MacDonald’s “A City to Yourself,” for example, examined the decline of Detroit.

Blakeney, who’s been teaching yoga in Ann Arbor for 32 years, said she got started fundraising for the festival three years ago. “That was when the funding for the arts really got cut and the film festival was in trouble,” she said.

That was the time when some Michigan legislators, citing films they found objectionable, pushed to yank state funding for the festival and put restrictions on funds awarded through the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs. Rather than agree to restrictions on content, the festival’s board decided not to apply for state funding. They later filed a lawsuit to overturn the restrictions, which the state repealed in late 2007.

Harrison recalled the funding crisis that originally led to the festival’s partnership with Blakeney. Community members and organizations like the yoga school rallied behind the festival and helped it pull through that rough spot, Harrison said.

Although there’s no “immediate crisis” in terms of finance now, Harrison acknowledged that it’s still a difficult time, with arts organizations facing funding cuts due to the economy.

“I think you have to be creative and find diverse ways of bringing in money,” Harrison said.

Putting on the festival costs approximately $400,000 to $500,000, Harrison said. In addition to individual community donors, local businesses also contribute to funding. (According to the AAFF website, Zingerman’s, Weber’s Inn and Michigan Radio were among the corporate sponsors for last year’s festival.) Other revenue sources include The Warhol Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, submission fees from filmmakers, ticket sales, membership dues, and income from the festival’s traveling tour. Other fundraising efforts include putting out DVD collections and licensing the films they showcase.

In an email follow-up after the Aug. 14 fundraiser, Harrison said this year’s Cinema & Yoga event raised $400 – less than half of the $1,000 it brought in a year ago. The decrease is perhaps reflective of a more challenging fundraising climate, he said, but the event was an important contribution as part of the festival’s outreach and education efforts.

The festival will continue to look for ways to deepen its ties to the local community, Harrison said. Though they recently made MovieMaker magazine’s list of top 25 coolest film festivals, AAFF doesn’t have the kind of broad support Harrison would like to see from their Ann Arbor base, and he hopes to change that. The festival is launching a membership drive in September, and they’ll be hosting more than a dozen screening salons this fall – including a free public screening at the Ann Arbor District Library on Oct. 22 – to engage more people in the process of screening festival submissions. In terms of manpower, the festival recently hired a new community development manager, Becca Keating, to focus on outreach and fundraising efforts.

“It’s a challenging time to be an arts nonprofit,” Harrison told the group at the Cinema & Yoga event. “It just means we have to work a lot harder. We’re continuing to reach out to the community.”

The 48th annual Ann Arbor Film Festival will take place from March 23-28, 2010. Submissions are currently being accepted.

About the author: Helen Nevius, a student at Eastern Michigan University, is an intern with The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

Maria LoCicero and Leandra Blander, students at Summers-Knoll School, read from the book "Moon Wolf," which they helped illustrate. They helped with a book reading on Sunday at the Crazy Wisdom Tearoom.

The Chronicle has no idea how often howling echoes through Crazy Wisdom Bookstore & Tearoom, but customers there definitely heard wolf-like sounds on Sunday afternoon. The occasion was  a reading of “Moon Wolf,” a children’s book illustrated by students at Summers-Knoll School and written by the head of school, Joanna Hastings.

The book is a classroom project turned fundraising venture – it’s now sold at several local stores. “Moon Wolf” tells the story of a wolf who lives in the moon and leaps to Earth when the moon is full, enjoying many adventures and raucous howling along the way.

The 22-page book is actually an excerpt from a much longer narrative poem by Hastings, also called “Moon Wolf,” that was performed several years ago at Performance Network in its old digs in the Technology Center on Third and Washington. [That warren of buildings burned down in 2003 – the YMCA's new facility is now on that site.]

Joanna Hastings, head of school at Summers-Knoll, reads from "Moon Wolf."

So how did the excerpt from her longer poem end up as a children’s book? The saga started at last year’s Ann Arbor Book Festival, an annual event featuring panel discussions as well as a vendor fair. Summers-Knoll had a booth at the festival to promote the school – as an activity for kids at the booth, they had materials to make miniature books using paper, stickers and markers. Hastings worked the booth with Kim Guziel, the school’s business manager, and while they were there they started making little books themselves, just for fun. That activity prompted Guziel to encourage Hastings to write a children’s book of her own.

Guziel kept nudging her, as did Melissa Bruzzano, a parent at the school. As Hastings thought about it, she realized that part of the long “Moon Wolf” poem she’d written years ago might work as a poem for children. And that’s what she decided to pursue, with the idea of having students illustrate the work.

Several parents got involved in the project too. Ruth Marks, an artist whose daughter Amelia attends Summers-Knoll, coached the students as they worked on the drawings, which were done in February of this year. Bruzzano researched book printers. She tried to find one locally, but none she contacted could produce the work in color, she said. A couple of local firms suggested she try Color House Graphics of Grand Rapids, and that’s where they ultimately got “Moon Wolf” printed.

Ruth’s husband, James Marks, owner of VGKids in Ypsilanti, did the pre-production work, which included selecting the artwork that ended up in the book. (Because not all the images could be used for the story, the final pages include photos of the kids and their art.) The project cost around $1,300 for 200 books, an amount that included shrink-wrapping the books.

On her head of school blog, Hastings wrote about the process earlier this year: “Most of the images were developed by several children. When the selections were made, no one knew who had drawn what. Each illustration is a collaboration and a fusion of energy from each class. That is what makes them so special, and makes me so proud of the finished product. I feel as if every child’s spirit is represented in the overall response.”

Some of those students were on hand Sunday to sign copies of the book. And after Hastings read it aloud once, two students – Maria LoCicero and Leandra Blander – read through it again, the second time embellished with sound effects from the audience, which consisted mostly of Summers-Knoll families. (Hastings had hoped for a broader community turnout. Before the reading began, she said she wished some of the families who came to town that day for the Taste of Ann Arbor would wander in for the book reading. It wasn’t clear that any of them did, despite the alluring howls.)

The books are selling for $20 at Crazy Wisdom, Downtown Home & Garden, Falling Water and Nicola’s Books. Proceeds will go toward needs-based scholarships at the private elementary school, which is located at 2015 Manchester Road in Ann Arbor.

Alec Bayoneto, one of the illustrators of "Moon Wolf," reads a brochure about summer camps at Summers-Knoll School while he awaits the start of the book reading on Sunday.

The front cover and an inside page from "Moon Wolf," on a table in the Crazy Wisdom Tearoom.

Jim Cameron, right, a board member for the Ann Arbor Public Schools Educational Foundation, gets a tutorial from Travon Larkin-Warren as Rong (Tim) Situ looks on. Larkin-Warren and Situ are sixth-graders at Scarlett Middle School, where the foundation held its annual fundraiser on Saturday. The boys were on hand to demonstrate the My Access writing program, which is funded in part by the foundation.

“Everybody’s proud in the Scarlett Nation!” Ben Edmondson, principal of Scarlett Middle School, proclaimed to the 200 or so people gathered in the school’s cafeteria Saturday night. He could have been talking about the eighth-grade boys who were dressed in suits and leading tours of the building. Or the orchestra that played a solid performance of William Hofeldt’s “Toccatina.” Or the kids who contributed to the school’s first literary magazine, a draft of which was on display in the media center. Or the $11 million that’s been spent on building renovations over the past few years.

Highlighting Scarlett’s achievements was just one goal of the evening for the Ann Arbor Public Schools Educational Foundation, which hosted the event. It was the nonprofit’s second annual Celebration of Innovation and Excellence, a way to draw attention to the district’s accomplishments as well as challenges, and to raise money for supporting the schools.

The evening included tours of the building, led by Scarlett students and alums, displays and demonstrations of projects both specific to the school and districtwide, and performances by student musicians. The Chronicle’s tour was led by eighth-grader Orion Rosales and UM sophomore Chris Bowerbank, a Scarlett graduate who’d been enlisted by a friend whose mother, Ellen Daniel, teaches there. (In response to some mild snark from the group, Rosales said he didn’t think the display in the science classroom designed to illustrate the atomic structure of gases was actually a Chinese checkers set.)

Orion Rosales, an eighth-grader at Scarlett Middle School, led tours of the building.

The tour included a demonstration of a program called Elevate Math, which two Scarlett students were demonstrating in the media center. They were sitting at computers with headphones on, talking to tutors who were helping them work through math problems displayed on their computer screens. The tutors on the other end of the line were in Mumbai, India.  Why Mumbai? The program, part of a broader business called Elevate Learning, was started by Shaily Baranwal and Suhas Ghuge, who developed it while they were MBA students at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business – and they’re  from Mumbai.

Marla McKelvey, a Scarlett math teacher who was on hand to explain the program, said it was paid for with Title 1 funding from the state. Scarlett is eligible for this funding, which targets high-poverty schools, because of the number of kids who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. (Later in the evening, Edmondson said that 50% of Scarlett’s roughly 570 students receive free or reduced-price lunches.)

A few tables away in the media center, sixth-graders Travon Larkin-Warren and Rong “Tim” Situ were working on computers using a different program, My Access. Scarlett had been the pilot site several years ago for this writing program, which is now used in fifth-grade classes districtwide. The program provides writing prompts, feedback on things like grammar and punctuation, as well as more global writing assessments, according to Carroll Caudill, a Scarlett language arts teacher. Students can get more writing practice and feedback this way than any single teacher can provide, he said. In fiscal 2009, the educational foundation contributed $25,000 to funding the My Access program.

(Larkin-Warren and Situ, upon discovering that The Chronicle would be writing about this event, said they’d been featured previously in a news article by David Jesse – last year, their fifth-grade math class was highlighted in a piece by the Ann Arbor News’ education reporter.)

Ellen Daniel, who teaches language arts at Scarlett, was also in the media center, with draft copies of the school’s first literary magazine, which includes artwork, poetry, short stories and other work by students. They would have been further along with the completed version, she said, but a power outage on Tuesday caused students to be sent home before they could meet to do the final proofing and copyediting. The project is funded with $1,000 from one of the foundation’s mini-grants.

The Scarlett Middle School orchestra performed at Saturday's event. On the right, playing electric cello, is the orchestra's director, Mitchell Lawrence.

Several other projects that received mini-grant funding were exhibited at Saturday’s event, including Latino family workshops and a program that brings local farmers into the classrooms to talk about their work.

In remarks during a formal presentation at the event, superintendent Todd Roberts said that even though the district faces financial challenges, they were still able to achieve great things. One example he cited was the work of Pioneer High School teacher Jeff Kass – Roberts noted that last Wednesday had been declared Jeff Kass Day by the mayor. (Not coincidentally, Wednesday was the day of his one-man show, “Wrestling the Great Fear: A Performance Poetica.”)

Roberts said that because Proposal A caps what a district can do in terms of tax revenues for schools, there are two other options: 1) increase private giving, and 2) think seriously about a countywide enhancement millage. Roberts said that Ann Arbor is well-positioned to make private giving a strong component of funding in the future.

Wendy Correll, the foundation’s president, echoed that sentiment. She said that in its early years, the foundation provided about $2 per pupil to the district. Now, that amount is around $10 per pupil for the district, which has about 16,500 students. But their goal, Correll said, is to raise $100 per pupil to fund innovative programs for all students and schools.

The evening ended as people finished up their desserts – the event was catered by Chartwells, which holds the contract for food service in the district. There was also opportunity to learn about the many relationships and connections that people had to Scarlett. Russ Collins, who hosted the formal presentation and is himself a product of Ann Arbor schools, noted that his wife, Deb Polich, had briefly worked as head cook at Scarlett’s cafeteria when she was in college. (Polich is now CEO of Artrain. Collins is CEO of the Michigan Theater.)

The notion of pride came up again, too, as the evening wound down.  Scott Westerman Jr., who was superintendent of the Ann Arbor district in the late 1960s and early ’70s, chatted with Scarlett principal Ben Edmondson and praised his work and leadership at the school. Edmondson had recently been in the running for the superintendent’s job at the Ypsilanti public school district, but was not one of the two finalists. Westerman told him not to worry – it was just a matter of time before the right opportunity came along. He assured Edmondson that he’d be a superintendent one day, because he had those kind of leadership skills.

Ben Edmondson, principal of Scarlett Middle School.

Wendell Clark and Wanda Sanders of Chartwells make stir-fry for a student. Chartwells, which has the contract to serve food in the schools, catered Saturday's event. Clark and Sanders typically work at the Pioneer High cafeteria.

The fundraiser drew visitors from across the region, including the woman in this photograph, who said she drove down from Lansing. Terry Jackson, foreground, is a member of the Peace Neighborhood Center drum corps, which was on hand to perform. At right is Bonnie Billups, Jr., executive director of the center.

When former University of Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr arrived Thursday evening at the Zingerman’s Raucus Caucus fundraiser to benefit the Peace Neighborhood Center, he had no linemen blocking for him.

So Michael Hedin – whose Townie’s Two Step team was competing in the fundraiser’s sandwich design contest – wheeled around from his conversation with us to pitch to Carr the virtues of his team’s two-meat sandwich. The coach was there to help judge the sandwich design contest at the heart of the fundraiser – and he was wise to Hedin’s angle: “Yeah, I always used to talk to the officials before the game, too!”

A few minutes later, Gov. Jennifer Granholm delivered remarks that kicked off the event, which raised around $18,000 for the neighborhood center, according to Rick Strutz, a managing partner of Zingerman’s Deli.   Located on Maple Road near Miller Avenue, Peace Neighborhood offers after-school programming and tutoring for elementary and middle school students. 

Peace Neighborhood Center

Bonnie Billups, Jr., executive director of the center, was on hand at the sandwich contest, along with director of development Kevin Lill and program director Paul Johnson, as well as several officers on the Peace Neighborhood board. Johnson said that the center was facing the same tough economic climate as every other nonprofit and for them it meant that they were using more interns from the UM School of Social Work. It also meant that he and Billups were pitching in by helping to drive the van and the bus used to shuttle students to and from the center. Billups has a commercial driver’s license endorsement, while Johnson has a chauffeur’s license.

Darin Latimer, front of the house deli manager at Zingerman's, holding a batch of yellow ballots. At right is coach Lloyd Carr.

Johnson said that he’d voted for the sandwich that actually won after all the votes at the Raucus Caucus were tallied: Number Five – “Peace of Mind.” The creation came from a team that included two sisters, Kathy and Amy Sample, and specified layers of pepper bacon, avocado, EZ mayo, tomato, mixed greens on toasted Bakehouse White bread. Johnson allowed that his vote might not have been based purely on taste. It could have been influenced by sandwich’s nod to the name of the neighborhood center

Party-zone Voting?

Unlike Johnson, Tom Wieder (a local attorney, who with his wife, Sue Schooner, support the Peace Neighborhood Center) said he’d made his choice for sandwich Number Five based purely on taste – which he said he’d not expected, based on the ingredient descriptions. He had figured to like the pastrami (Hedin’s “Townie’s Two Step”) best. In any case, he declared that his was “an honest vote.”

Still, the “Townie’s Two Step” found its advocates among the voters, even if it did not tally enough votes to win. Among them was former UM and NBA basketball player Jimmy King, who told us he’s now running a solar energy company in addition to working as a broadcast analyst for basketball games. He said he had a collection of mentors who gave him notes on his commentary. For example, they point out places where his timing is off. “Don’t step on your partner when he’s trying to talk,”  is the kind of feedback they give. He said he liked the “Townie’s Two Step” but that it was close between a couple of other entries. What made the difference, he said, was the team’s enthusiasm.

The team’s enthusiasm also captured the attention of Rick Strutz, who awarded them the Sandwich of the Month item he’d successfully bid for in the auction part of the fundraiser.

Chuck Anderson and Al Newman.

D.J. (Doylan Jackson), a special ed teacher at Stone School, also voted for the “Townie’s Two Step” even though he had a specific suggestion for improving it: Add peppered bacon. That would give the sandwich a total of three meats. D.J. said he enjoys cooking – and frequently prepares meals for Jimmy King when he drops by for a visit.

Bob Guenzel attended the festive fundraiser as well, and we pressed him for details on how he voted – even though his position as administrator of Washtenaw County is non-party-zone in nature, and the query probably put him in an awkward spot. But you can mark Guenzel down in the column for Number Three, “Newman’s ‘Where’s #90′?”

The Rundown of the Event’s Origins

Who’s the Newman in the Number Three sandwich’s name? That’d be Al Newman. This year’s Raucus Caucus marked the second year the fundraiser has been held – inspired by Newman’s quest to sample every sandwich Zingerman’s Deli makes to determine the very best one.   Newman was previously president of the Peace Neighborhood Center’s board. Said Rick Strutz, a managing partner of Zingerman’s Deli, as the event on Thursday evening was winding down, “This never would have happened without Al.”

Newman himself said he didn’t care about winning or losing the contest – the point was to raise money for the neighborhood center.  Other teams, though, campaigned for their sandwiches as hard as any politician running for office.

The event has a connection to literal running as well, at least in terms of some of the social connections amongst attendees. Earlier in the day, The Chronicle had been out at Bandemer Park to shoot photos of the rowing teams, when two guys – one of whom looked like Jim Kosteva, UM community relations director – came running past on the park path, which leads along the Huron River. We weren’t sure it was Kosteva, but when he appeared at the fundraiser, it was a chance to confirm: Yep, it was him, he said. It turns out there’s a group that often runs together, starting out from the YMCA on Ann Arbor’s Old West Side. It often includes Newman and Ken Nieman, associate director of the Ann Arbor District Library, who was also at the fundraiser.

Amy Sample holds a "campaign sign" for the "Peace of Mind" sandwich, which won the most votes from attendees of the caucus.

Michael Hedin and Marianne Brett. Having moved to Ann Arbor for school, the couple is now here for the long haul as homeowners – otherwise put, they're townies.

Design of the commemorative T-shirt for the event listing the names of all the candidate sandwiches.

Olivia was one of the Zingerman's servers who brought out samples of the candidate sandwiches.

Football signed by Lloyd Carr.

Coach Carr was ready for sandwiches of any size.

Lloyd Carr signs a football for a member of the "Townie's Two Step" team.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm chats with Lloyd Carr before the event started.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm gave the opening remarks. She declared all the candidates to be winners.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm said the sandwiches nourish our bodies, but the Peace Neighborhood Center nourishes the community.

We were unable to determine if Gov. Jennifer Granholm was showing the crowd what Michigan would look like if everything north of Lansing disappeared, or if she was just trying to hitchhike home.

Dabenport was on hand to provide musical nourishment. We believe this is Vince Swain.

A recent Tweet by the Nonprofit Enterprise at Work (NEW), commenting on Wednesday's Cultural Alliance meeting.

The newly renovated and expanded University of Michigan Museum of Art is a social place: Tuesday night, several hundred people attended a kick-off fête for the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, while Wednesday brought members of the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan together for their annual meeting. The focus of Wednesday’s day-long event was also social, as in social networking – specifically, how nonprofits can use social media like blogs, Twitter and Facebook to fundraise, market and strengthen their organization.

Being social animals ourselves, The Chronicle dropped by both events, but was able to spend a bit more time at the Cultural Alliance forum, which was well represented by Ann Arbor groups, including the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre, University Musical Society and Arts Alliance, among others.

Linh Song of the NEW Center in Ann Arbor was one of the event’s organizers. She presented a session on fundraising with Twitter, Facebook, Tipjoy and other online tools. She started by defining social media – it’s about conversations, not monologues, with an ethos of honesty and transparency. Participants are people, not organizations –  institutional control is being ceded to consumer control.

Linh Song, an organizer and presenter at Wednesday's Cultural Alliance annual meeting. She is director of npServe, a program of the Ann Arbor-based Nonprofit Enterprise at Work.

Though it’s an effective, low-cost way to reach out, she said, most nonprofits aren’t taking advantage of social media. “We need to catch up.”

Song described Twitter as perfect for communicating with a nonprofit’s constituency and raising money. “It’s like a stream of consciousness coming from your organization.” NEW uses Twitter to promote workshops and other events, but also to pass along links that other nonprofits might find interesting, and to talk about what staff members are doing. (One recent Tweet: “Quality Coffee Friday at the NEW Center today. Tenants are loving @Sweetwaters House Blend and House Decaf!”)

Related to Twitter, TipJoy is an application that allows you to raise money via your Twitter network. It’s an alternative to the more well-known PayPal e-commerce system, Song said, and is preferable for nonprofits because it charges lower administrative fees for the transactions.  Song reported that a nonprofit called charity: water raised $250,000 in a week-long TipJoy campaign.

Facebook is another way to communicate with current or potential supporters of your nonprofit, Song said. She described an application called lil Green Patch, a game that’s free to play – Facebook users create and tend a virtual garden – but that’s also used to raise money for the Nature Conservancy. (The creator of lil Green Patch, David King, will be coming to the area in May for the Michigan Nonprofit Association SuperConference.)

The Meet the Bloggers panel at the Cultural Alliance annual meeting, from left: Mariah Cherem of Yelp, Jessica Rauch of The Generation Project, and Jim Griffioen of Sweet Juniper.

Following Song’s presentation, three panelists talked about how they use blogs and social media. Mariah Cherem, a graduate of Eastern Michigan University, works with Yelp, a site for reviews of restaurants, realtors and a range of other businesses and organizations. Cherem stressed that though Yelp has a nationwide reach, its power lies in allowing you to find reviews or make your own comments about businesses in your local community.

Jim Griffioen, a former attorney and stay-at-home dad, runs the blog Sweet Juniper, which he started after the birth of his daughter, Juniper. He now has about 50,000 visitors to his site each week, and has an agency selling ads for him: “I just get the checks – it’s incredible.” Engaging with readers is crucial, he said. When organizations do a blog, they often don’t do much with it. “If you do it half-ass, no one’s going to read it.” He suggested finding someone who’s passionate about the organization, and letting them blog without fencing them in.

The third panelist was Jessica Rauch, founder of The Generation Project. Her site allows donors to craft their own way of giving, then links them with low-income K-12 students who’ll benefit from their gift. The UM Law School’s Business Law Association, for example, recently held a fundraiser to provide interview clothes for Detroit students seeking after-school or summer jobs.

Now, back to the Ann Arbor Summer Festival kickoff party the previous day.  Who have they booked for this year? Their website is counting down the days to the official public announcement  – currently with three days left.  Based on the brochure they were handing around at the party, though, there’ll be something similar to but not exactly Beyonce, plenty for folks who mind their steps, a martini that you can’t drink, some people who are just making stuff up, plus eleven more acts to choose from.