March’s Speaker

Ever dream about becoming a writer? A novelist? A creator of short stories?

At the BPT’s March monthly meeting, Board member Jim Buckley will present ideas and methods that you could use to make that dream come true.

Over 1,400 of Jim’s non-fiction stories were published between 1984 and 2007. His murder mystery novel has also been published. So he has the necessary background and experience to give you help with your writing skills. Make plans now to be at the March meeting and get some help with achieving your writing goals.

Harbor to the Bay

We received a nice thank you letter from Jim Morgrage and Harbor to the Bay for our donation of $200. Harbor to the Bay raised over $425,000.00 for HIV and AIDS care this year! One hundred percent of donations to Harbor to the Bay went to their beneficiaries: Fenway Community Health, AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod, Community Research Initiative of New England and the AIDS Action Committee. “These leading HIV and AIDS service organizations improve the quality and accessibility of HIV care and services, drive community awareness to prevent infection and embrace people impacted by AIDS.”

The late Michael Tye founded the Harbor to the Bay Charity ride thirteen years ago; since then over $4.4 million has been raised and donated!

The 14th annual ride will be held on Saturday, September 17th, 2016. If you are interested in riding, donating or helping out, see their site.

Harbor to the Bay is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization.

2016 AIDS Walk & 5K Run

Registration for the 2016 AIDS Walk & 5K Run, New England’s largest HIV/AIDS fundraising and awareness event, is now open.

The 31st AIDS Walk Boston & 5K Run will take place on June 5th, 2016. “Every year, thousands of people come together to take action in honor of those we’ve lost and to give hope to people living with HIV/AIDS. Your participation and fundraising efforts support AIDS Action Committee and its work to prevent new infections, maximize the health outcomes of those infected, and to end the epidemic here in Massachusetts.

“We have the tools and vision to engage and work with the communities most impacted by HIV/AIDS but we need your help to end the epidemic. Sign up to Walk today!”

To register or learn more, visit their site.

Watch for more information in a future number of the Prologue!

Nunch! The Nun Brunch

As many of you may have heard, we received a generous grant of a thousand dollars from The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence which we will be using to modernize our office with the purchase of much-needed new computers.

The Sisters will be having a ceremony to present the grants at Club Café on March 6th, from 12-3 PM. Doors will open at 11:30 AM. Two of our Board members will be representing our organization in accepting the grant.

Tickets will be available at $30.00 per person, which includes Club Café’s fantastic Sunday brunch. Visit The Sisters on Facebook and their website for information. Tickets are now available via Club Café. Use the checkout code “prime” to get our discounted price (a $5 savings).

As part of the grant ceremony, there will be a number of variety of fun acts, including drag performances, comedians and possibly a hypnotist. So let’s show our gratitude to The Sisters and have a great turnout! It’s for a good cause and promises to be great fun!

Also, don’t forget to check out Sister Bingo on February 8th.

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 3rd, 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 12th, 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.