originalsam_backup | Charitable Getting: Draft 2, Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Date: Wednesday 12/2/09

I am here! Liveblogging the hell out of the SparkVISION year in review party. Forgive typos, smartphone keyboards are smal.

Hot topics of pre keynote speech discussion:

webinars
Christmas
the god damned weather

okay that last one is just me. Seriously though. God damned weather.

Still glad I wrangled an invite to this thing. Will say this about not for profit folks: they know how to throw a party. More details later. Wine and nibbles now.

Hope this makes it through, cell reception is crap in this place.

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***

Roxy looked gorgeous, and she knew it.

Ordinarily, she didn't bother with the little black dress and the hairstylist, content to perpetuate the geek-chic stereotype. In the cube-farm down the hall from the lobby, and especially when she spent at least some of every day crawling around under tables and desks to get at cords, dress code didn't apply; a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and a hair-tie were sufficient.

Sometimes, however, it was nice to break out the low-cut dress, hit the salon between work and the party, and bother with mascara. Besides, the announcement that had gone out about the SparkVISION annual dinner had been very specific: look sharp, dress up, and pretend the company wasn't paying half the food bill in free marketing advice to the catering company.

The point was, the dress and lipstick made her look pale and mysterious, and the pre-dinner reception seemed to be going really well -- the hotel ballroom looked great decked out in red, and the tables ranged around the stage at one end of the room were covered in perfectly crisp white tablecloths and tastefully subdued flower arrangements. Everything seemed perfect.

At least, until her boss said one word to her:

"Webinars."

"What?" she asked, returning her attention from where it had been straying across the pre-dinner reception.

"Webinars. I hear they're the wave of the future," Bo Sparks told her, perfect white teeth visible in his wide enthusiastic grin. "I checked a pre-recorded one out on the Tech4Free CEO's phone -- do you know him?"

"Uh." Roxy wracked her brain. If he ran a company named Tech4Free, she probably should know him. In theory her job might be mostly confined to setting up video conferences and troubleshooting database errors, but in practice Sparks expected her to know everything about the internet, the people on the internet, and the people who kept the internet running. She was about to dismiss Tech4Free as a startup, which would excuse her not knowing them, when Sparks continued.

"Anyway, I emailed you some ideas," he said, lifting a glass of wine from a passing tray and sipping it judiciously. Roxy clenched her phone anxiously in one hand. She heard the ding of an incoming-email alert.

"Can you get them up on the website by tomorrow?" Sparks asked, while Roxy took the phone out of her pocket and checked her email. "Can we do the first one on Friday?"

She had two emails from her mother, one from Sarah, and one from Sparks. Not yet master of the shift key on his smartphone, he'd typed the email all in lower case letters, using random punctuation to separate names from dates and subjects. It looked like Erin was scheduled to present SparkVISION's first ever webinar on Friday, two days away.

"Let me look them over and get back to you," she said, and hurried away before Sparks could ask her any more questions. She had fifteen minutes to find Erin, make a crisis plan, and be back at the podium at the front of the room by the time dinner was served, to set up the PowerPoint for Sparks's presentation.

Erin's job was to make clients happy and prevent them from pestering the rest of the staff, which meant that she was usually standing at the swag table at events, handing out free SparkVISION branded gear and making small chat about peoples' spouses, children, dogs, and hobbies. Roxy always thought of Erin's job as a sort of cross between publicist and therapist; clearly people did love to talk to her. Her official job description was Client Joy Manager, which had led to a lot of innuendo before Erin pointed out one day that, as second in command of SparkVISION and Sparks's personal favorite, she could fire them all with relative impunity.

Erin was not at the swag table, however, nor was she at coat check, nor anywhere in the crowd, at least that Roxy could see. Hopefully Sparks hadn't found her yet. It was always best to go into a meeting-with-the-boss forewarned, even if that meeting was in the middle of a reception.

She knew, at least, where to find Ian, and Ian would probably know where Erin had disappeared to.

The kitchen was filled with steam and shouting from the catering chefs and waiters, but Ian was easily spotted in the middle of it, the only figure not wearing white. When he saw her, he pushed his way to the front of the kitchen over the protests of the chefs he was elbowing to get there.

"The pasta station's broken," he said, by way of greeting. "Dinner's going to be seven minutes late. Every single pot bigger than a soup bowl is on the boil. Can you fix heavy industrial catering machinery?"

"I...just need to know where Erin is," Roxy said. "Nice tie, by the way."

"Thanks. This time of night, I'd think she'd still be overjoying clients," Ian replied, straightening the tie's knot slightly. "Try the swag stand."

"I passed the free stuff on my way in. She's not there."

Ian picked up a glass of wine from a passing tray and handed it to her. "Drink. What's going on? HEY, SOMEONE'S CREAM SAUCE IS SCALDING," he shouted, and then turned back to her as one of the chefs crashed through to stir it.

"How did you know that?" Roxy asked.

"What, I can't be a receptionist and a good cook too?" Ian inquired. He looked young when he grinned that way -- well, he was young, but younger, a blue-eyed kid in a business suit. "You were going to tell me why we're panicking?"

"Sparks just told me he's scheduling a webinar for Friday," she said.

"Oh, so the Tech4Free guy talked to him about it?" Ian asked, smoothing his already-tidy hair with just a hint of guilt.

"You knew?" Roxy blinked at him.

"Yeah, well, I thought I'd network them a little. He was talking about webinars to someone when I was checking coats, and I said he should go show it to Sparks."

"I am going to stab you later," Roxy said. "Any idea where else Erin might be?"

Ian fidgeted with his cuffs. "She's probably trying to get cell reception, it sucks in here. Check the northwest corner next to the podium."

Roxy leaned out of the kitchen and looked at the podium. Erin was standing there, waving her phone around energetically, red hair beginning to come undone from its neat up-do.

"How do you do that?" she asked.

"Magic," Ian replied, already distracted by something. "I'll put a note in my calendar to remind you to stab me tomorrow!" he called, as Roxy ran out of the kitchen.

She hurried through crowded knots of men and women in formal wear, trying not to elbow anyone too sharply or at least to make it look like an accident when she did.

"Roxy!" Erin called as she approached. Erin, like Roxy and half of the women at the dinner, was wearing the standard Little Black Dress, patting the flyaways from her hair back into place as she flailed with her cellphone. "Are you getting cell reception? It sucks in here."

"Yeah, but I need to talk to you first," Roxy said urgently. "Sparks just -- "

She was interrupted by the sound of a muffled scream from behind the stage curtain.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Anna," Erin replied. "Listen, I just need to make one call."

"Why is Anna screaming?" Roxy inquired. Erin lifted her phone over her head, looking up hopefully.

"Sparks finished contract negotiations with the Nations In Need people this afternoon. He wants it included in the speech, so…" Erin waved a hand gracefully. "Anna's rewriting it. Sarah brought the papers over and she's taking her through it now."

"Well, that's a score, I guess," Roxy said, momentarily distracted. "Are we happy with Nations in Need?"

"It's income." Erin shrugged. "Sparks wants the speech to sound smug, but not too smug. Anna might have had an embolism when she heard."

There was another distant scream. Roxy frowned. "Is she going to be okay?"

"She'll get it done. Screaming is how she works," Erin said, unperturbed. She tucked another loose lock of hair behind one ear. "Besides, Sarah's there, she can call for help if she faints or something. If she could get some reception in here!" she said, annoyed.

"Okay, just -- put the phone down," Roxy said, pulling Erin's wrist to her side. Erin gave her a curious look. Roxy braced herself. "Sparks wants us to do webinars."

"He wants what?" Erin asked.

"Webinars," Roxy said, and thrust her own phone under Erin's nose. A slow look of horror dawned on Erin's face as she read the text of his 'suggestions'.

"What fresh hell is this?" she demanded.

"It's webinars! He wants this text up on the website tomorrow. Day after tomorrow, you're giving an internet-based call-in seminar on social media. Congratulations, you're a guru."

"I hate social media gurus!" Erin snarled.

"Thanks," Roxy said dryly.

"You don't count," Erin said. "You just make the computers go. Not that making the computers go is unimportant!" she added hastily, as Roxy scowled. "I'm glad the computers go! I'm glad you don't lecture us on trendy tips for Facebook marketing! Oh God please don't make my computer stop," she begged.

Roxy relented and patted her arm. "I promise I won't sabotage your computer."

"That's good, because I've got -- oh you have got to be kidding me," Erin stared at the email again. "Two days? Two days to write a PowerPoint presentation on social media?"

"You could do it in sentences of 140 characters or less," Roxy managed, stuffing down insane laughter. "Can you do it? I'll try to put it off until Monday, but no guarantees."

"Do I get a choice?" Erin asked. "Who told him about this?"

"It's Ian's fault," Roxy told her.

"Is it really his fault or are we blaming him 'because it's fun' again?" Erin said suspiciously.

"Really his fault," Roxy replied, affronted. Usually if they blamed someone for fun, it was one of the interns. They wouldn't be that mean to an actual person. "He's made a note to remind me to stab him tomorrow."

"Don't do it until after he makes the coffee," Erin advised, just as her phone rang. They both looked at it.

"Success!" Erin cried, and answered it. "Hi! Zoe! Great! I need to make a call. Talk to you later!"

Erin was distracted by her phone, and Anna's backstage screaming seemed to have subsided. Roxy realized she wasn't immediately necessary and there was still a glass of wine in her hand. She sipped it while she backed away from the stage slowly and went to find Sparks again.

Bo Sparks wasn't hard to find, even in a crowded room. Among the glitterati of the charitable sector's leading faces, he glittered brightest -- a handsome thirty-something with the barest beginnings of salt-and-pepper in his brown hair, a booming voice, and an infectious laugh. Roxy liked him even when he was seriously messing up their lives. After all, the staff liked a challenge; if working for Sparks was easy, none of them would be there. The intangible benefits were more important, and possibly material for a comedic chapter in her memoirs.

Roxy found Sparks in the thick of the crowd, cracking jokes with a man whose name tag simply read UNION ARMS.

"Roxy! Over here!" he called. "Roxy, this is Trent Byron, he's the Executive Director for Union Arms."

"How do you do," she said, shaking hands. He had an annoyingly vigorous grip; he was one of those men built on broad lines, all enormous square shoulders and barrel-chest, and he had huge hands. He shook hands like he was trying to win a contest.

"Trent, Roxy MacTavish," Sparks continued. "She's the head of our IT department."

Roxy very carefully did not point out that she was the entirety of the IT department, not counting Zoe, who wrote code sometimes even though it wasn't in her job description as a graphic designer. Union Arms was a big charity, and if they were interested in SparkVISION then she would let Sparks sell their services any way he pleased. That was what he was there for, after all.

"Pleasure to meet you," Mr. Byron said. "This must be very exciting for your staff, getting to meet all the bigwigs," he added to Sparks. Roxy eyed him skeptically, but he was apparently busy schmoozing her boss.

"It's a working party. Roxy's been going over ideas with me for the webinars we're rolling out soon," Sparks said, obviously enjoying himself hugely. "Roxy, how's Friday looking?"

Roxy looked back and forth between her boss and the head of Union Arms. Erin was going to kill her.

"Friday's great!" she said cheerfully.

"That's excellent," Sparks told her, looking pleased. "Almost ready for my big speech?"

"I just need to get your laptop set up," Roxy replied.

"Duty calls," Sparks said, clapping Mr. Byron on the shoulder. "Have a seat. I'll see you after dinner."

"About my seat," the other man said, following Sparks as they walked away. "I'm sure there's someone I can switch with, to get a little more central to the action, away from the junior management..."

As if on a subconscious signal, people began to drift towards the tables clustered around the stage, looking for their place cards and greeting their dinner companions. Cellphones were silenced. A few industrious go-getters were unfolding small paper pads on which to take notes. Roxy saw Anna and Sarah emerging from behind the curtain, both looking a little frayed around the edges but with smiles -- or the best substitute they could manage -- stamped firmly in place. They were met immediately by Ian, who was carrying an open bottle of wine.

On the edges of the gathering, the rest of SparkVISION's service team was slowly forming a nervous-looking crowd. Roxy wondered if she was safe to leave Sparks alone with the laptop and join them. They were subtly passing around a flask, and Ian was pouring out wine from a second bottle into plastic cups.

As everyone settled in their seats, the lights dimmed. A projection appeared behind Sparks:

SparkVISION: Providing For The Providers.

Sparks cleared his throat and smiled. You could practically hear the ting as his teeth caught the light from the podium.

"Good evening," he said, and there was a murmur of polite applause. "Welcome to SparkVISION's fifth annual Status and Forecast dinner. This morning, I was thinking about our first annual Status and Forecast dinner. Back then we were a little less formal..."

Roxy knew what was coming, and managed to stifle her groan of dismay. Sure enough, there was the slide: a giant image of Sparks, in a TOOL t-shirt, sitting with their only two clients at the time and eating pizza out of a box on the table in front of them. Cue: audience laughter.

"...but we've grown since then," Sparks concluded. "Now we can afford plates. Naomi!"

Naomi, at the back, hastily handed the flask to Ian. Like Erin, she was properly fashionable for the clients: elegant as the blonde Hitchcock heroines Roxy idolized as a kid, dressed in something just slightly over the top -- though really, around Sparks, you couldn't have too many sequins anyway. And she was wearing sensible shoes, which somehow made the whole thing work.

"Yes, boss?" she called.

"What's our operating budget for the rest of the year after this party?"

"Do you want that in negative dollars, or negative Euros?"

"Whichever makes us look better," Sparks said. Ting went the smile. The audience snickered.

Roxy breathed a sigh of relief and saw the tension in Ian's shoulders relax as the waiters emerged from the kitchen carrying trays of food and pitchers of water. Following behind them was a short woman in a suit, carrying a bundle of what looked like legal documents -- Cee, Sparks's PA, who immediately settled in at a nearby table for a conference with Sarah. They were probably going over the Nations in Need paperwork, the contract that Anna had just rewritten half of the speech to include.

Sparks, however, was blithely ignoring the waiters, the huddled staff watching him, and the few murmurs of conversation at the tables around the stage.

"We are gathered here tonight -- friends, clients, colleagues, and a few competitors -- to reflect on what we've achieved on the past year," he continued, "and to make resolutions for the year to come. Some people have called SparkVISION's goals ambitious, but we feel it's better to aim high and risk falling short than to set our sights on mediocrity, and I'm sure our clients will agree."

Sparks changed the slide again, and a complicated series of boxes and arrows appeared on the screen. Zoe had spent a very frustrating week attempting to quantify visually what SparkVISION actually did, and had ended up with some horrifying combination of flow chart and org chart which nevertheless looked hot on the screen. Roxy, feeling that Sparks probably wouldn't break anything now that he was on a roll, edged her way towards the rest of the team, keeping one ear cocked for phrases like "Uh oh" or "Computer frozen".

"When I said I wanted to start a consulting firm specializing in not-for-profit organizations, there didn't seem to be a lot of demand for it," Sparks said, and there was a soft chuckle of amusement that ran around the room. "But as you can see, the variety of services we offer -- in particular, our focus on internet marketing, which has grown in leaps and bounds in the last five years -- has shown people that they need us. We want to help you do the best work you can do in the most efficient way."

"Did you write that?" Roxy asked Anna, who poured herself another glass of wine and brushed her slowly collapsing hairdo out of her eyes. Even falling down, it didn't look too bad; Anna was a good-looking woman, with a narrow freckled face and dark brown eyes that Roxy knew Anna thought were plain. Roxy would have swapped with her in an instant; green eyes might be more exotic in whatever lexicon of beauty Anna subscribed to, but Roxy noticed that Anna somehow made men want to know what made her tick. Trent Byron, Mr. Union Arms -- who had managed to wrangle his way into a central table -- was glancing back at them once in a while. He wasn't looking at Roxy.

"Sparks set the theme, I just wrapped the words around it," Anna replied, slouching down in her chair. "Do-the-best-work-you-can-do is his new thing, I think. Empowerment and whatever."

Onstage, Sparks was already moving on to money, begging their forgiveness for his manners in doing so. Terms like gross income and equity began to wash over the guests.

"We're never closing a client contract in December again," Anna continued, giving up on her hairstyle entirely and starting to pull pins out of it, shaking it down into long curls. "My nerves can't stand it."

"You had four minutes to spare," Sarah told her, without looking up from her phone. "Besides, our lawyers just emailed me back. Our ass is covered. Good job."

"What would I have to do if they didn't approve it?" Anna asked. She looked around for somewhere to dispose of her hairpins, then shoved them in the pocket of Ian's jacket.

"Do you really want to know?" Sarah countered, slyly adjusting the chopsticks holding her own hair back.

"She doesn't," Roxy said, in coincidental union with Ian, who looked up from his texting and gave her an amused grin.

"Can I diss MySpace in a webinar on social media?" Erin asked, ignoring the discussion of Sparks's speech that was going on around her, as well as the speech itself. Onstage, Sparks began reviewing the not inconsiderable accomplishments SparkVISION had achieved that year. Given that the economy had tanked and charitable giving was always the first to go, they really hadn't done badly at all. They were clinging on by their fingernails, but those fingernails were very well-manicured.

"I heard you're the new webinar queen," Sarah said.

"Where'd you hear that?" Erin asked, looking alarmed.

"I have my ways. As long as everything you say is a fact, you'll be fine. Try not to get catty about anyone."

"I'm the clusterfuck queen at the moment," Erin muttered. "Clusterfuckinars. I was going out this weekend. I was going shopping. Now I'm stuck studying statistics on Internetworking."

"Is that a word?" Ian asked, aghast.

"It is now," Anna sighed.

"Oh, uh, by the way," Roxy said uncomfortably. Erin glared at her. "Boss says have it ready by Friday."

"On the up-side, that means you can still go shopping this weekend," Ian pointed out.

"You, shut up," Erin pointed at him, then returned to her phone. "Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn...what am I missing?" Erin said, poking her phone impatiently as she keyed the list into a notes file.

"Blogs," Sarah reminded her, looking like she was sorry to bring up such an impolite topic.

"Oh, hey, I have some good ones bookmarked," Ian added.

"Shit! Blogs!" Erin cried, and Sarah shushed her. Ian looked guilty. "This is all your fault!"

Out in the lights, Sparks began to extol the simplicity of their new website donation app. Roxy preened a little. That had been her and Zoe's baby for six months, and she was justifiably proud of it. There was a rustle of paper behind her and then someone poked her in the back.

"Made it!" Zoe whispered, pulling up a chair. Roxy turned around and gave her a welcoming hug, beaming. "Charles got home from the game in time to take kidlet so I could run out. Sorry I'm in my hoodie. Sparks picked the one pixelated image I sent him on purpose, didn't he?"

"He probably thinks it gives the presentation edginess," Roxy replied. "Have some wine. What's with the bag?"

Zoe smiled at her and traded her a glass of wine for the paper bag she'd been carrying. "I brought cookies! I thought everyone might get hungry."

"It's a dinner, Zoe," Roxy pointed out.

"Yeah, but...cookies!" Zoe protested.

"I'll eat them if you don't want them," Erin offered. Roxy sighed and passed the cookies down the row to Erin, who handed one to Sarah and one to Naomi before settling in with the bag.

"Who's the woman taking notes?" Zoe asked, indicating a young woman at a nearby table. Roxy didn't immediately recognize her; she had short curly hair and the standard black dress, but there was a bright red-ribbon choker around her neck, which was an unusually gothic fashion choice for a formal event.

"I think she's a reporter," Erin said. "Sparks said he put out a call to some media pals."

"Speaking of," Anna said, consulting her phone, "Guess who's liveblogging us?"

"Liveblogging," Erin moaned.

"Are people tweeting?" Roxy asked. "I don't see many phones out."

"Yeah, but that's not the big deal," Anna replied, brushing her hair out of her eyes again. "Non's posting about us."

All other chatter amongst the staff ceased. Even Sparks's voice seemed to fade into the background as heads craned over Anna's cellphone. Roxy took out her own phone and checked the bookmarked blog there. Anna was being cryptic, and if Non Prophet had negative things to say about SparkVISION, they should know as soon as possible. Roxy liked him as a writer, and he wasn't usually rude about his dislikes, but he had a lot of pull. Being the focus of his attention could be unnerving.

"What's he posting?" Naomi asked, trying in vain to see around Sarah's head and nearly losing an eye to the chopsticks holding Sarah's neat bun in place. "Is he slamming us?"

"Why would he slam us? We're awesome," Ian replied, leaning over Anna's shoulder.

"He says it's a great party," Anna replied. "He says he'll post later with all the details."

"You know what this means, right?" Sarah asked Anna, dark eyes gleaming.

Roxy wasn't sure she knew, at first, but then Erin looked up at the crowd and realization hit.

"He's here somewhere," Erin said, studying the men and women at the tables, most of whom were looking at Sparks. Except for Trent Byron, who was still casting looks their way occasionally. "Non Prophet's in this room."

"Maybe he's a client," Roxy suggested, looking around eagerly. He might be a decent blogger, but he was much more interesting as a mystery.

"Or a competitor. I bet he's that guy, the young guy who's here from AllArts," Erin said. "He was kind of a sleaze though, he was hitting on me like I was going to give him ten percent off our fees."

"You never know, Non might be a sleaze in person," Naomi replied. "Wouldn't be the first time."

"Well, I think he's a sweetheart and I never got that vibe from him," Zoe put in.

"You've never met him," Sarah pointed out.

"So? People can't be nice in person and on the internet?"

"You're such a mom," Anna told her, smiling.

"It's not like he's going to be glowing or something," Ian grumbled, sitting back in his chair. "He's just a person. Not even. He's a blogger."

"Someone's jealous of internet fame," Roxy teased, ruffling Ian's dark hair. He fussed her off and finger-combed it back into order.

"I hear he gets fifty thousand hits a day and had to take a restraining order out on a stalker," Erin said.

"I hear he's secretly a woman," Anna replied.

"Erin keeps linking to his posts with LOL in the subject line," Naomi said pointedly.

"Well, they're funny," Erin protested.

"Erin, I work in finance. They're funny but not relevant."

"Everyone look attentive," Ian said in a hushed tone. "Faces forward, he's about to thank us for our efforts."

Cee and Sarah shuffled their papers away, Erin tucked her phone in her pocket, and Naomi folded her hands primly in her lap. Zoe and Anna moved back so as to be almost invisible, and Ian scooted gently to one side. A second later a bright spotlight hit them as Sparks extolled the virtues of his hardworking team and congratulated them on a job well done.

"We're getting overtime for this, right?" Sarah whispered.

***

In high school, Bo Sparks had taken a public speaking class as an elective and never looked back.

He loved giving speeches, especially the upbeat, honest speeches that Anna wrote, even though he suspected sometimes that she was poking fun at his constant good mood -- Anna wasn't what he'd call a cheery person, overall, but at least she faked it well in the prose. He also loved getting all the attention afterwards, when people wanted to ask him questions and congratulate him on whatever he was talking about.

He could see his people beginning to pack up in the background; he hoped they were getting ready to go out and drink toasts to SparkVISION's successful year-end dinner. Some of them looked like they'd had an early start on the toasting, but they deserved it. None of them, after all, got to stand near the door and shake hands and talk to all their clients and competitors, which was the whole point of having a party like this.

The crowd was thinning by the time the woman in the red choker approached him, a notepad still in one hand. He couldn't immediately place her, and the fact intrigued him.

"Mr. Sparks," she said, offering her hand to shake. "Tanya Montray, Weekly City."

"Ms. Montray," he replied, beaming at her. Weekly City was the most widely-read magazine in Chicago, and was gunning for the Tribune itself in terms of paper circulation. "So glad the paper could send an emissary this evening. Did you enjoy the food? I won't make you lie and say you enjoyed the speech."

"I found it educational," she said. "I can see why SparkVISION is a company to watch."

"And why is that?" he asked. She gave him a funny look. "I like to know why people think we're awesome. Helps me figure out how to stay awesome."

"Can I quote you on that?" she asked. Bo tilted his head, studying her.

"You can, but you won't," he told her. "It's not interesting enough."

She laughed. "Fine. Give me a sound bite, then."

Bo closed his eyes and let his lips move a little, for show.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Giving you a sound bite. Wait, I'm proofreading it now," he said, eyes still closed. He could hear her snort of impatient curiosity. "Excellence is a goal to be achieved not for our own sake, but for the sake of those we serve," he said, and opened his eyes. She was copying it down diligently in a small notebook.

"Satisfactory?" he asked.

"It'll look good in big type," she said. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Sparks. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about you in coming months."

"I hope so. Call anytime if you need something pithy or quotable," he told her. She laughed and gave him a nod as she left. Bo moved on to his next guest, who had pasta sauce on his tie.

***

Date: 12/2/09
Subject: Make A Difference, One Cater Waiter At A Time

Well, I promised a report on the SparkVISION hootenanny tonight, and now that I have a proper keyboard in front of me I can do a little more than the sketchy notes from earlier.

As I did say earlier, SparkVISION is a lot of fun, and they put on excellent parties. It's très uncouth to compliment the catering at a dinner party, but I don't think Bo Sparks will mind if I tell him he has excellent taste in food prep, a subject very dear to my heart. I wish more companies would do a year-in-review party like SV, because then I'd get a good meal once in a while instead of scavenging the staffroom for box-lunch leftovers, stuffing bits of sandwich into my cheeks for later like a hamster.

Also, nobody stinted on the wine. Whether that's generosity or aimed at getting the clients tanked before you talk to them, I leave to my readers.

SV has done well this year, and I think will continue to do well, especially with the new programs they've unveiled. You can check the list of new programs at the website -- the slots for the webinars are going fast, and those are sure to be educational, so I'd sign up soon -- but my favorite is the Price List.

Those of you in charitable giving have probably seen this before, especially with educational institutions. For a set amount of money you can "buy" something with your donation. Say, ten grand gets you a park bench, fifty grand some kind of birdbath or garden or something. A couple of million might earn a building named after you. SV is introducing this in conjunction (kinky!) with the Parks Association of Chicago, but with a twist: a set donation amount will buy your name on a sculpture donated to the Parks Association by a local artist, with the money going to one of SparkVISION's local urban youth organizations. I'm guessing it'll be another Cows of Chicago kind of campaign. I'm holding out for kangaroos, myself.

Come on, don't tell me you don't want to see Kangaroos Of Chicago.

In the spirit of SparkVISION, I've decided to publish my own price list. Donate to the Feed Non More Sushi fund and you too can have your name affixed to something on my desk. Just picture it: The Your Name Here Memorial Stapler. The Fill In This Blank Desk Directory. This Pen In Memory Of Your Deceased Loved One's Name.

Bidding starts at seven dollars or one shrimp tempura maki roll.

SV also announced that they've just been hired by Nations In Need to organize their events and manage their investments, so keep an eye on Nations In Need's gala dinners as the foodie pinnacles of the coming year!

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Chapter Two