January 2016 – Boston Prime Timers, Inc.

Our Online Presence

Our President will be joining the cast of Florida Renaissance Faire for the season. He is currently preparing for his trip to Florida and wanted to share changes to our web presence.

We will be making our Facebook Group public, for use publicizing the club and for attracting new members. In its place, we have created a private forum/online bulletin board. Unlike our website, you will set your own personal password which will be tied to your e-mail address (like Facebook). Among the chief benefits are privacy, control over our content, and your ability to focus on discussions of interest to you.

Like Facebook, you can easily post links, images and other content, polls and start threaded discussions. Unlike Facebook, you have more options to personalize your posts and as we operate the forum, we are not subject to the whims of Facebook’s management and we are here for you to help you with any questions or problems. Because of the layout of the forum, it will be easier to find discussions you are interested in, because these will be categorized under headings and have titles of the author’s choosing. Plus, you will be able to search by words in the discussion or for members’ names. You can also subscribe to topics, to get an e-mail when there is further discussion.

When your account is ready for use, we will send you an e-mail on how to access the forum and set your password.

In addition to the private forum, we will also have a public blog, both to mirror articles from the Prologue and to be able to share events that may not have enough lead time to make the Prologue. Occasionally, we are informed of events held by related organizations where the event is before the next number. It is our hope that these two new features will help bring us together and out into the greater community.

The blog can be found at bostonpt.org [here], and the forum is linked on the left side. You can go directly to it at bostonpt.org/forum as soon as you receive your account. Only members listed on the shared roster will receive an invitation. Members who requested that their e-mails be kept private will have to request an invitation by e-mailing the office.

If you have any questions or need help connecting, please contact John Bennett, David Stanford or Philip Findlay.

We look forward to seeing you online!

Hasty Pudding Theatricals

How fortunate are we to have ready access to the finest comic live theatre—Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Theatricals.

This year’s 168th production is entitled: “HPT168: That 1770’s Show”.

We have 60 prime seats to the performance at 8 PM on Thursday, March 3^rd, 2016 at the Hasty Pudding Theatre, 12 Holyoke Street, Cambridge, just outside Harvard Square (the closest T stop is Harvard Square on the Red Line). Tickets are $26 per seat and our seats will be in the front three rows.

About this year’s production:

It’s 1775 and it’s no tea party in Boston. After spoiled little brat Anne Heritance demands that her pushover father Govenor Bucky Hampalace raises taxes yet again, the colonists are yankee doodle done with British rule. With the help of the govenor’s new gold-digging wife Mae Flower and hunky fur-trapper Seymour Beavers, the colonists plot to kidnap the little brat and send her back to England for a permanent tea-time-out. However when the colonists run into delusional sailor Ahab Bitualliar, who has followed a mysterious giant fish into Boston Hahbah, they discover they may have a bigger fish to fry. Will sea monster Codzilla exact revenge on the colonists for murdering his kin or will he become their catch of the day? Will fiery seamstress Betsy Gloss find a way to trim taxes down to size or will recovering alcoholic Benjamin Dranklin drown in booze and tears? Don’t tread on these colonists as they persue life, liberty, and happiness in “HPT 168: That 1770’s Show!!!”

Time is running out, so make your reservation NOW! The cut-off date is February 12^th, 2016. The unsold tickets, if any, will be turned back to HPT on that date.

You will be treated to a memorable, humorous, and totally enjoyable world-famous performance that will have you laughing heartily!!! And all of this enjoyment is only $26.

February’s Speaker

The February program will feature Sam Goldfarb and several members of the Support Group that meets before each monthly meeting. The team will explain the way the group works and share with you some of the benefits they receive. While it is a drop-in group, many men have been attending for years, becoming friends in the process. You can join them!

Sister Bingo

Sister Bingo will be changing from its monthly format to a more fluid schedule. The Boston Prime Timers will be continuing our relationship with the good Sisters and are pleased to announce that the next Sister Bingo will be on February 8th from 7-11 PM at Club Café.

We will continue to collaborate with their fund-raising efforts throughout the year, and are currently planning an Easter Bonnet Hat Party, so stay tuned for details.

The Sisters are a modern Order of queer Nuns, comprising of people of all gender associations, all spiritual affiliations, and all proclivities to do good works.

The Boston Sisters are a House of The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence™, Inc., which was founded in San Francisco on Easter Sunday, 1979 and now embodies more than 2000 Sisters worldwide.

Fund Raising Idea

Last year’s Holiday Party finished up in the red, while that’s great for things like Santa’s suit, it’s not so great for finances. We are committed to trying to continue the new tradition of offering our Holiday Party free to all members. Therefore, we need to come up with more ways to raise funds. Stop & Shop has a program called Cash for Causes available to non-profits that might help.

Everyone is familiar with Stop & Shop gift cards; you buy a card for, say, $20 and you can purchase $20 worth of groceries—simple. Well, with the Cash for Causes program the Boston Prime Timers would be able to sell members and their friends gift cards and retain five percent of the price for our coffers. Five cents of every dollar would go toward funding our Holiday Party or anything else we choose.

The catch is, if we are accepted, we must purchase a minimum of $500 worth of gift cards. So the board would like to gauge the level of interest from the membership before making such a sizable financial commitment. Do you shop at Stop & Shop? Would you be willing to shop with gift cards purchased from the Prime Timers? Remember, it would cost you nothing extra on you grocery bill to help us raise 5 cents for every dollar you spend. We would make the cards available at the office every meeting day and select Tuesdays (which would be listed on our new forum). We might also be able to add it to the Tear Sheet, so you could order gift cards via mail. So if you are interested please let a board member know. We are not asking for specific commitments, we just need to gauge the level of interest.

This club is what you make of it. The board needs the help of every member to make the Prime Timers all it can be! Together we make a community.

St. Patrick’s Day Dinner

Chef Tony will be serving up the corned beef, cabbage and a little blarney immediately following the March meeting. Join us for the next installment of the hugely successful meals with a Saint Patrick’s Day boiled dinner of corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots. Cost is $10.00 and reservations must be received by March 11th. Each dinner proves more popular than the last, be sure to get your tear sheet in early! Late reservations will not be accepted. Please indicate if a vegetarian meal is required.

Happy New Year

Here it is 2016, and I didn’t make any personal resolutions this year because I haven’t been too successful in keeping many in the past. However, I have made some resolutions for our chapter, and along with your support and that of the board, I am going to work hard at keeping these resolutions. This started out as a wish list:

Replace our aging and temperamental office computers.
Explore opportunities in acquiring grant monies which would fund future projects.
Put a float back into the Pride Parade by finding funding & sponsors to accomplish this.
Day trips in the spring, summer & fall.
Creating more membership activities.
Membership drives through events and advertising & social media.
Search out other charitable projects while continuing to build our relationship with The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.
Making our Ogunquit & Provincetown getaways even better.

To get these rather ambitious ideas off the drawing board and into application, we are asking for your help, your involvement and your investment. Your board works hard to pull things together and make things happen but without your support and participation it all feels rather empty. I hope that you became a member to make new friends, expand your social circles and have fun doing things that you like to do with people you enjoy being around. I am soliciting your ideas and asking for your input to make these resolutions happen. Please give me or a board member any thoughts you may have about all of this and let’s make 2016 a year filled with new memories yet to happen with old friends and new acquaintances. The more you put into your membership, the more you get out of it. Happy 2016. May it be a fun-filled & healthy year for all of us. And remember, together we can make things happen.

Holiday Party Recap

In case you missed it, 2015’s holiday party was a smashing success, with dinner, dancing and good cheer, and plenty of merriment to go around.

The day started off a little rough with some hiccups which were ably handled by our volunteers, led by Harry & Philip. Tony stepped up in the kitchen to help with our meal. Philip took over shuttling our members from the train station. We had a delicious meal of turkey, roast beef, a multitude of side dishes and dessert, provided by The Silver Fox. We also enjoyed our usual monthly birthday cake. Tony & Stephen provided music and Tony manned the carving station.

For our raffle, we had numerous prizes from a number of anonymous donors, as well as two museum day passes generously provided by the Institute of Contemporary Art. As they say, it is better to give than receive. A big bravo to our membership, for they certainly gave and gave generously to The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’s Toy Drive for less fortunate children cared for by DCF and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The Sisters’ van was overflowing with our donation of toys, gift cards and wrapping paper. Thank you, Prime Timers, job well done!

A big thank you goes out to all of our volunteers who pulled together to make this possible. Through your donations and the efforts of our volunteers, we were able once more to offer this party to our membership, free of cost.

If you have any ideas to help us raise funds for next year’s party or if you’d like to volunteer, please talk to a board member. We look forward to another great year!

Fred & Emile Screening

We will be presenting Fred and Emile (2015), a new documentary short about two of our members, at the January meeting, and hearing from producer Jerry Bisantz, who will take your questions.

Fred and Emile, co-produced by Image Theater and Breaking Branches Pictures, is now available via Harry Fullerton. Starring our long-time members, Fred Riley and Emile Dufour, this 25-minute documentary charts their coming out and coming together during a tumultous time in gay history. When Massachusetts became the first state to legalize same-sex marriage in 2004, Lowell residents Fred Riley and Emile Dufour proudly announced their marriage in The Sun. Now, 11 years later, their story is told. Directed, filmed and edited by Christian de Rezendes, produced by Jerry Bisantz with production consultant Ann Garvin, and music by Stephen Gilbane. Copies are $15 each, with proceeds furthering the distribution of Fred & Emile’s heartwarming narrative.

Call Harry today at (857) 544-3630 for your copy or pick one up at the January meeting!