The State of Stone Soup, 7-23-18

I promise to take more pictures of St. Paul and not keep using the same shots over and over.

Note: I am linking this post through my Facebook page and Twitter handle. You should not post replies here or any of my other public pages and instead email me at chadpoetforhire@yahoo.com directly if you are interested in my proposal. I don't want you to inadvertently post your email and risk getting hit by spam bots.

Since May, Stone Soup Poetry has been at it's new Park Street location. I have been very slow to introduce regular features but am hoping to get back into the swing of things. After Labor Day, I have already scheduled two features, with more to be added.

After I have finished moving to my new home in Parts Unknown, I will be pushing to advertise Soup and reaching out to as many groups as I can (particularly when the college students start to arrive).

We need to generate more interest, or we won't be able to pay poetry features anymore. As it is, Jan Rowe and James Van Looy have been donating to keep the Thursday slot open at their church.

Just as I had to previously serve two masters paying both features and the old Out of The Blue Gallerys' weekly rental fee, I want to be able to compensate them as well as the poets. To do that, we need new people and a resurgence of Stone Soup's old audience (it's only three train stops from Central, friends). My biggest concern, however, is staying in touch and reaching out to the latter group.

Despite Stone Soup being at it's new Park Street location for nearly three months, people--many on Stone Soup's Facebook page--are still learning about this news despite multiple Facebook postings, as well as posts on Twitter. I'm starting to lose faith in most social media keeping everyone up to date.

I've thought about new strategies, and what I have seen some writer friends do recently is go back to basics with two classics: the email list, and the newsletter. This way, the information goes directly into your mailbox without having to sign on through Facebook or go through any other online hurdles.

I was already thinking of creating a weekly newsletter to be sent out to interested parties no more than once a week (preferably Monday afternoon). I originally envisioned a newsletter detailing my work (as I'm always writing and publishing) and include Stone Soup features for the week, along maybe with what to look forward to with Oddball Magazine (which I still co-edit). However, a Stone Soup Feature Info only newsletter might be more what people want.

I don't want to send out two separate newsletters on top of everything else I do, so that's why I'm doing this informal poll. Please email me at chadpoetforhire@yahoo.com if you are interested in being added to this hypothetical mailing list.

Write "Chad/Stone Soup" in the email's subject if you want a more Chad-centric mailing list. Write "Stone Soup Only" in the email's subject if  you only want Stone Soup info. then I'll know where I stand.

Whatever the end result, I do plan to upload more Stone Soup videos in the future and will use whatever form the newsletter takes to highlight those as well.

Thank you for your time.