Final Post: Working on the Draft

The past few days of working on my SCORE project have been slow but productive. I am still waiting for the answers to the questions that I sent via email to Deborah Elisason, my first interview source. Hopefully she will send them later today or tomorrow, though today would be more preferable as it would give me more ample time to further rephrase my final draft. I sent her about nine questions related to nonprofit work, which are the following:

1. Why are nonprofits exempt from taxation?

2. Describe your position in SeARTS.

3. What do you believe are the qualifications for working in a nonprofit?

4. What are some recent problems that nonprofits in general have been facing?

5. What initially attracted you to joining a nonprofit?

6. What do you believe should be the general mission of all nonprofit organizations, regardless of their individual themes?

7. What are the greatest strengths of nonprofits? Weaknesses?

8. Describe the benefits that nonprofits bring to there surrounding community?  

9. What makes a nonprofit different from a regular business or corporation?

Yesterday, I was able to find a second interview source. Originally I had been planning to interview my dad, James Caviston, who is the president of SeARTS. But yesterday, because of an email sent by my dad, I called up Bob Hastings, executive director of the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce. In our conversation over the phone, I told him that I would like to interview him as a source for my paper. He agreed to my proposition. I told him that I would send him questions via email to him, and that he would send his answers back no later than this Sunday. The questions I asked him were almost the same as the ones I sent Deborah Eliason, but included more about the CACC, which is a larger and more wide-ranging group than SeARTS. Here are the questions that I sent to Bob Hastings:

1. What is the mission of the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce?

2. How does the CACC promote business activity and promote economic development?

3. What are the most important economic drivers in Cape Ann? What areas of business activity are growing and what ones are dwindling? 

4. What are the greatest challenges faced by the CACC in the course of its work?

5. What is the best way for a nonprofit to use the internet?

6. What do you believe are the most effective ways of advertising for a nonprofit?

7. What are the best qualifications for working in a nonprofit?

8. What initially attracted you to working in a nonprofit?

9. What are the benefits that nonprofits bring to the community?

10. How large a role does membership play in CACC's work?

Slow & Steady Progress

As the above title suggest, my work yesterday on my SCORE final draft progressed at a slow but steady rate. I started yesterday on my revisions of the text of my rough draft. I cut out sections I thought were unnecessary or were not allowed by the SCORE rubric (In this case, the use of the first-person). In particular, I looked for phrases that I had used more than once, circling them so that I could change them later. For example, I tend to over rely on usage of the words "This" and "These". Both these words were hunted down and ruthlessly circled by the iron point of my #2 pencil.

I also took the opportunity to visit the library again to look for my third book source. Though I only used four sources in my rough draft, I actually have seven sources: my SCORE project, two books, three periodicals, and a website. Due to time difficulties, I couldn't fit all of the soures into my rough draft. My visit to the library was therefore necessary to find one more book source. Fortunately, in this aspect, I was successful, as I managed to find several quotes from a book.

This left me with my interviews. I asked my dad if he would like to be interviewed, to which he agreed. Now I just needed to my second source. In my last post, I discussed the possibilty of interviewing Bob Hastings, the executive director of the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce, as my second interview source. However, yesterday, I thought that I may try to interview Deborah Eliason, the member of the SeARTS board of directors who I had worked with on the surveys. Yesteday morning I sent her an email asking her if she would have time this to sit down for an interview. Unfortunately, as of this morning, at 7:48 AM, I have yet to hear back from her. She is undoubtfully very busy this week, but I hope that I will receive an email from her soon.

Writing the Final Draft

This week I will be fully committed to preparing the final draft of my SCORE essay. As states in the previous blog, I need to add more to my essay in order for it to be fully completed. These additions to my essay will have to include my required two interviews about the benefits of nonprofit work and at least two other sources, including another book and a periodical.

I have two specific interview in mind. The first is my dad, James Caviston, who is the president of SeARTS nonprofit organization I interned at for my SCORE project. My dad has been the president of SeARTs for almost  five consecutive years, giving him much experience and insight into nonprofit management and work. In  my opinion, he would be an invaluable source of information for the essay. The other possible interviewee is Bob Hastings, executive director of the Cape Ann Chamber of Commerce. I have met Mr. Hastings at the meeting between the city of Gloucester and representatives from the federal government two weeks ago. It had been originally suggested by my dad after the meeting was concluded that if there was no work for me at SeARTS, I could continue my research as an intern at the Chamber of Commerce. This idea did not materialize, but I was able to become familiar with the Chamber of Commerce through our introduction.

Hopefully the latter will be available this week for a full interview. Speaking of which, I still have to conceive what questions I will ask both my interviewees. Will they will the same questions? Different questions? Or a mixture of the two, depending on the nonprofit they run? Either way it is going to be a very busy week.

Finishing the Rough Draft

Today I had planned on turning in the rough draft of my SCORE essay I labored over yesterday to my SCORE advisor, Coach Marty Stephan. Unfortunately, I learned that he was not at school today, making it impossible for me to hand in my essay. This leaves me having to email my essay to him, which is also coincidentally unfortunate because I had saved the rough draft on my home desk top. It will be simple to do later, I suppose, but at the present time it is a minor annoyance. But enough of my problems; I have to relate how I long I worked on my rough draft for.

The answer to that was all day. As I mentioned before in a previous post. I had not been able to start my rough draft until Wednesday. On Wednesday, I finished about a page and a half before finishing up for the day, vowing that I would complete it on Thursday. From 9:30 on Thursday morning to 10:30 at night, I worked arduously on the rough draft. I realistically realized early on that it would not be the required 12 pages, but since it was a rough draft I didn't have to worry about that now. I also didn't have all of my sources put together, but again reasoned that I had more than enough to complete this draft and would get more for the final draft.

Overall, I probably could have been more organized in my approach to writing the paper. I did have enough sufficient quotes to make my rough draft a complete essay. What I will add on to my final draft will be quotes from interviews, which I admit I haven't done yet, and also more sources, including books and from a website/podcast/video.

Day #1: Working on the Rough Draft

Today was the first full day that I had a chance to sit down and work on the rough draft of my SCORE essay. To be frank, I found the transition to be somewhat difficult and confusing. I had been working on my SCORE project for the past four weeks and through word of mouth remembered that the rough draft is due this Friday. I feel that the seniors were not given a specific date on which they could start their rough drafts. This would have given them more time to prepare their materials and sources that they've gathered through their project and use them in the essay.  I suppose since many of my classmates have projects of different and various natures means each student would finish their project at a different date. All the same, a little more preparation would have been useful.

The current state of my rough draft is sketching out a rough draft of my rough draft. I have so far found three of the required ten sources. I plan to find more tonight and finish finding them tomorrow, when I will also start the rough draft. Since it is a rough draft, it would not, to my belief, be terrible if the essay falls short of its requirements. All the same, I would like to hand in a decent essay on Friday. If it is completed fully, then only editing the paper will be necessary. If the paper is not fully completed or just falls short of the standards, then I can just finish the paper, and then edit it for the final draft due May 23.

Latest Updates & Concerns

While reviewing my blog posts in preparation for writing my rough draft, due this Friday, I discovered that I discovered that I had only completed nine blog posts. The required amount of blog posts, as I am aware of, is fifteen, meaning that three should be have been done for each week during the project. I was surprised that I was short six blogs and checked to see what I had done wrong. I soon uncovered the problem and am now blogging about it to clarify the matter.  

If my blog posts are to be acutely followed, it is noticeable that there is a week-long gap between late April and early May. This gap occurs directly after the April 27 nonprofit organization meeting that seARTS participated in. Between the time of my next blog, which was a May 1 blog detailing the meeting, I had lapsed back into school work, which was preoccupying and time consuming. After having attended the nonprofit meeting, that I had contributed to through my work on the surveys, I seemed to find myself in a situation in which I had nothing to do. The nonprofit meeting had been one of the most important events of that month for seARTS. I am glad to have been able to be involved in the preparations for the meeting and to have participated in it first-hand. But since it was over,  there seemed to be no long-term projects that I could involve myself in. Until an opportunity came about, I waited and in the  meanwhile worked on school-related assignments.

This waiting period lasted for almost a week, during which I made no blog post since I had nothing to contribute to the project. In retrospect, I could have done more research on sources for my paper. But after my week-long hiatus, I once more became involved in seARTS through it's participation in the meetings between the federal economic assessment board and the Gloucester city government.

Federal Economic Assessment (In Depth)

As I promised two blogs ago, I will now describe the Economic Assessment Meeting held at the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester between a federal delegation, the mayor, and numerous nonprofit organizations, in greater depth. As stated before, the delegation was in Gloucester to determine the economic state of the city. As I also said before, this was, as I believe, the first time that the city of Gloucester had directly asked the federal government for financial aid, making it a significant event in the city's history. I won't be able to supply direct answers for each question asked, especially for the above question, but I can supply many of the questions asked.

After everyone in attendance had briefly explained who they were, the order of business was a discussion about the different aspects of the economic situation of Gloucester. One of the first questions that was asked by the board was about art colonies in Gloucester, specifically whether there were any. It was explained about there were a number of art colonies, most notably the Rocky Neck Art Colony.

The next question asked by the board was how the market shares of Gloucester would be characterized. Gloucester, it turns out, currently ranks 33rd in state market shares, not a positive sign. The concept of a "creative economy", a diverse economy, was discussed, and what were the measures Gloucester was enacting to do so.  Strategies for building up the infrastructure were also discussed, particularly by Chamber of Commerce head Bob Hastings. Because of the lack of infrastructure and attractive business, many residents had been leaving Gloucester in droves. This, as a consequence, has deprived the city of much needed revenue.

Hastings used a quote to describe Gloucester's situation: "We have seen the enemy and he is us". This about sums what was unanimously agreed upon in the meeting: Gloucester is in the economic dump, to phrase it nicely, a lot of it the fault of poor handling by the city government and the residents of Gloucester. The mood of the meeting, however, was very optimistic, much like the meeting I attended last week. That is a positive sign that cooperation to work toward the economic benefit of Gloucester is unanimous by all parties involved.