Also check out the Last Night Calendar 

Notes From This Year

We're wide open.  The world is your oyster.

First, the details of this year's parade:

Okay, now on to other things:

I'd like to invite you to help plan this year's downtown New Year's Eve celebration.  Wanna help?  It's a planning meeting & potluck. We are brainstorming this year's celebration, and there is all sorts of room and desire for music and politics, guerilla artists and art, intrigue and adventure.

This year we have even more ambitions plans that include a parade, street party, entertainment, and performers well into the night. We hope to attract musicians, street theater performers, puppet shows, square dancers, and circus acts to take over downtown for a whole evening of DIY adventure and entertainment.

And if you can't come to help plan, at least consider participating in the celebration on New Year's Eve.  Not only a parade this year, but performances all over downtown.

I invite you to come Tuesday night 6pm -- corner of First Avenue and Atlantic Avenue:

• Tuesday Nov 27th 6pm
• Tuesday Dec 4th 6pm
• Tuesday Dec 11th 6pm
• Tuesday Dec 18th 6pm
• Thursday Dec 27th 6pm

I'd love to help inspire a DIY New Year's Parade and street party this year.  But mostly, I want an opportunity to work with other people who want to help make this happen.

Last year's street party was a fabulous end to the parade.  What can we do this year even more ambitious?  My dream, and I'll share it with you just because you asked, is that we turn Santa Cruz New Year's Eve into a fabulous do-it-yourself Festival!  All night long, happenings!  Music, dance, fireworks, parade, street party, performance, food, art!  All free, all participatory, all do-it-yourself.  Not just mere spectacle, but people expressing themselves and connecting with each other. 

So I hope to serve as a spark to the powder keg, not as an institutional voice of some faceless entity or organization.  In other words, I feel like the beauty of this thing is that you and I do it together. 

Notes From 2006

Critical Needs:  How can you help?

1. Art&Revolution's Giant Puppets needs fifteen people to operate them.
   
   
2. The Trash Orchestra has more instruments than people to play them.  We need ten more trash orchestra players (no previous percussion marching band experience necessary).  Talk to us.
   
   
3. We need your help along with a half dozen people making Last Night banners
   
   
4. We need a dozen people in the parade's Sweeping Tail to clean up after the parade.
   
   
5. We need two experienced people to serve as police liaison
   
   
6. We need experienced people for help with traffic control, conflict management, police liaison, and safety and security
   
   
7. We (might) need lawyers and legal support
   
   
8. If you are an experienced videographer, we need you to document the parade
   
   
9. We need still photographers to document the parade
   

The Third (and Final) 2006 Last Night Un-Organizing Meeting  

Last Night-ers,

Our next "un-organizing" meeting is tomorrow, Monday December 18th, at 7PM at 132 Kennan Street (off Ocean), same place as last week.

See y'all there!

The Second 2006 Last Night Un-Organizing Meeting  

This Year's Next Un-Planning Meeting! 

The first meeting rocked. We figured some figuring, and we discussed some discussing.

We talked about who we wanted to get involved, the highlights of last year, and what we wanted to be even better than last year!

AND we set up the NEXT Un-Planning Meeting

Same Place- 132 Kennan St.

Same People- Everyone

New time!  7 PM, Monday 12/11/06


Bring New Ideas, Friends, Yourself!

The First 2006 Last Night Un-Organizing Meeting  

What were the details on the last one?

This year's first Un-Planning Meeting is on!  December 2nd, at 6 PM!

We'll be meeting at Jeremy's House, at 132 Kennan St.(Off of Ocean street, between water street and Hwy 17)

What should I bring?   Everything!

Ideas, Munchies, Friends, and Dreams are all reccomended.

Who should I tell? Everyone!

Neighbors, Friends, Accomplices, Creative/SparkPlug-ey people, DIY-ers, Strangers.

This is a get-together to germinate ideas and foment action. Bring your best idea-seeds, and action-fertilizer.

First Meeting Flier (See the downloads page for more fliers.)

Why are we here?

We all came with different but similar hopes for Last Night. Here are some of the broad variety of reasons we are involved in this do-it-yourself event:

• self-reliance
• new exciting experience
• fun and a good time
• free-expression
• empowerment
• blowing minds
• revolution
• political involvement
• developing alternative community
• showing the power of the people
• seeing more whimsy in our town
• developing DIY culture
• community
• great music
• bone-shaking percussion
• and a rollicking good time

Are we really going to do this?

We asked ourselves this question early on at the first meeting. Talking about whether we wanted to have a do-it-yourself Last Night parade and hoohaw, the vibe was less like, "Sure, okay," and more like "Yo, hell, yeah." The enthusiasm was inspiring.

The number of groups who've told us they were committed to participating in the parade has steadily grown. And as we get closer to the date, the pace has increased. The event has a life of its own beyond the few original un-organizers. And that is as it should be.

Starting out

After some discussion, we arrived at a staging place and time:

We chose to make the parade early in the evening (rather than closer to midnight) for several reasons: 1) Shortly after sunset is the traditional time of the First Night procession, 2) lower ratio of drunks to the rest of us, 3) lower ratio of law enforcement to civilians, and 4) it gives parade participants a chance to make other plans later in the evening.

Self-reliance and responsibility

We've talked a lot about security and safety. To that end we are still seeking an experienced group to help with that. We were interested in contacting several volunteer groups that some un-organizers know from other events.

Additionally, safety is a concern for the stilters and firedancers within the parade. We want to make sure there is an adequate perimeter for spectators and other parade participants.

We were concerned about any litter or mess that the parade might leave behind. So we planned to create a Sweeping Tail that cleans up after the parade. We still need people to help organize and participate in this.

We are not asking the city for extra sanitation support, so we ask parade participants and spectators to not burden downtown businesses and take care of their business before they leave home if you can. After all, we each want to take responsibility for ourselves, ya?

How about outreach to other folks in the community?

We want to target our recruiting efforts to groups doing awesome stuff (bicycle folx, drum bands, political groups, clowns, pirates, street theater performers).

There are still segments of the community we feel are not represented. Where are our Samba bands? Political groups? Marching bands? Art cars? Zombies? Wacky fashion designers? Pirates? People of color? Kids? Where are the children?

We'd still like to see a coalition of the homeless marching proudly. Here is an important part of our town that is invisible most of the time -- how about at least one day of the year our homeless citizens can march proudly as members of our community.

People with connections to different groups are encouraged to talk to the people they know and see if they can get a commitment to participating in the parade. Also, people can make (and have made) fliers and handbills tailored for groups they'd like to see in the parade. Check out the Last Night fliers and handbills in our download section. Feel free to print and distribute them.

How about the drum-dance thing?

After some discussion, we have potential sites (and alternates) for the all-live acoustic hoedown after the parade. This will be a central location near the heart of downtown and should be a fun way to end our first Last Night DIY new years celebration. The parade will lead us all to the secret location of the drum-dance celebration.

Is there still a chance to get involved?

There is a lot that still needs to be done. And we need lots of help. Here is a quick list of critical Last Night needs. Email us as soon as possible if you can help.

• people for the parade's Sweeping Tail that cleans up after us
• people to operate Art&Revolution's Giant Puppets
• experienced group for safety and security
• lawyers and legal support (you know, just in case)
• an experienced videographer to document the parade
• still photographers to document
• people to play in the Trash Orchestra (no previous percussion marching band experience necessary)
• Last Night banners

Check out this list of 7 ways you can get involved.

You can post to the email list and keep the discussion going. Or you can hop on the Last Night discussion.

The Last Night Un-Planning Meetings: A Recap

The un-planning meetings we've had so far have been exciting. Great to meet all the un-organizers of Last Night, ordinary people who've decided that we want to make this happen.

First Last Night Un-Planning Meeting: Discussed (Oct 29): intros, publicity, what this is, stuff happening, developing plans, after celebration, a sweeping tail, giveaways, what if the city hosts their own procession? police liaison.

Second Last Night Un-Planning Meeting: (Nov 19) Discussed: intros/check-in, next steps, outreach, safety and security, police/city liaison, documentation

Third Last Night Un-Planning Meeting: (Dec 5) Discussed: intros/check-in, starting/staging point, starting time, who else is in? outreach, revised media guidelines, legal support, safety, police/city liaison, documentation

Forth Last Night Un-Planning Meeting: (Dec 17) Discussed: intros/check-in, what's happened so far, updates, who's in, outreach, safety and security, documentation, legal support, and next steps

Fifth and last Last Night Un-Planning Meeting: Thu Dec 29 at 6pm, location TBD.

Trash Orchestra Build and Practice Days

The Trash Orchestra Build and Practice Days have been great! We've built our instruments and practiced a good bit. We now have more trash orchestra instruments than people to play them. So there are openings in the Santa Cruz Trash Orchestra.

At first, we found that we were good at making noise, less good at making it sound pleasant or interesting. But with a little practice and some planning, we are sounding great. Or at least, great for a bunch of amateurs pounding on trash!

We'll be having one big practice the day before New Year's on Friday the 30th of December. 6pm to 8pm at the fish in front of the Cooper House and Cinema 9. Be there at 6pm sharp. Join us and bring a friend! This is your last chance to practice before the Last Night parade. We have a trash percussion instrument for you.

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