Report by Maureen Ceccarelli to SPBG meeting 5/27/12 re OHF2012

The 14th annual Old House Fair is just a bit over 2 weeks away -- on Saturday, June 16th, from 10am to 4pm. 

For any of you who are not familiar with the event, it brings 2 to 3 thousand people to South Park for a street fair at 30th & Beech Street, and tours of the neighborhood. The highlight is the Historic Home Tour, which costs $20, and covers 6 homes, plus a bonus garden and a tour of the historic Fire Station No. 9 building, now the home of South Park Fitness. 

Here at the center of the Fair we will have about 70 exhibit booths, which include neighborhood merchants, home repair and restoration services, artists, and furniture makers.  For kids there are free arts & crafts booths, gardening and The Green Machine, plus face-painting, balloons and flamenco dancing. Near Grant's corner is the music stage with live entertainment all day long, plus food booths and seating areas.  This year South Park Dog Rescue will have dogs and puppies for adoption, and they will offer low-cost micro-chipping for your pets.

We give everyone a free copy of the 48-page Old House Fair program and resource guide, which contact info for all the sponsors, exhibitors and advertisers -- it's a great booklet to keep and refer to throughout the year.

Special thanks go to the major sponsors -- The Station Tavern and South Bark Dog Wash, along with all the community sponsors who include several of you here today.  Your financial sponsorship makes it possible for us to show off the neighborhood to a few thousand people who have never been here before.  

We also appreciate the volunteer help provided by many South Park residents -- including a few of you here -- in operating the ticket and info booths and as docent guides in all the historic homes.  If any of you are interested in volunteering, we still have some needs.  Please let me know after today's meeting or give me a call at Studio Maureen.

One more thing I would like to ask. The BID Council provides us with the canopies for the booths, but this year they have reorganized their supplies and we do not have enough pop-up tents to cover all our needs.  If any of you own or have access to any pop-up tents that we may borrow, PLEASE tell me.  We promise to get them back to you the day after our event.

Our advertising and publicity campaign has begun -- I think most of you have copies of our poster and postcards.  Please display them for your customers.  We have print advertising, and a KPBS campaign that starts next week.  (By the way, the ad campaign was helped by a $500 grant from the County, arranged by Supervisor Ron Roberts' office - thanks for that!).  Our publicity campaign includes calendar listings in Westways and other media both local and around the state, and you'll see plenty of articles in the next two weeks.  So we are looking forward to a great event!