It’s always interesting when we can get the whole Jobsite braintrust in for our monthly business meeting. We had a lengthy meeting this past Friday to discuss big important things. Primarily it was about how to get the grant process rolling, how we convince those people who only come to our shows as single-ticket buyers to subscribe, and how we can begin to attract more people who want to help out with what we do in the form of cash donations.

It was at varying times positive, negative, spirited and silly.

I know I left the meeting very clear about what we need to concentrate on, and I’m dedicating myself to this very simply, very political sounding idea from now through the run of Gorey Stories: Rally the Base.

We have to do it. We have to stop talking about how we need more season ticket holders and just go get more season ticket holders. We need to stop thinking of how nice it would be if more people gave us money and start directly asking more people for money.

If we can double our season ticket holders going into the 0708 season, the implications will be huge. If we could double our donors, it would really change some things for us.

We’ve been operating with so little for so long, maybe it’s hurt us in that people think we don’t need any more. When you really look at what we don’t have though, some might wonder why we’ve done it this long.

We’re doing it because we love it, Tampa needs it, and we’re damned good at it. And we’ve worked too hard for too long to just pack up the tent and move on.

Bear with me, gentle readers, it’s about to begin.

Are you with us?