The Tampa Thestrals

Taken from the HPA website:

THE HPA IS WORKING WITH…BORDERS BOOKS!!
Posted by HPA Chapters on January 21, 2011 at 4:14pm in Questions, Suggestions, and Updates
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Keep your shirt on, guys, we’re all excited here.
 
We are working with Borders Books to host a Benefits Day for the weekend of March 19.
Borders has agreed that for every person who makes a purchase during that day in support of the HPA (this support is shown by bringing in a coupon voucher* for the cashiers to scan), they will return a percentage of the sales to us.  Because we are a national event, we have also received an online code so people can make purchases online if they prefer that to coming into a store.
 
Cool? Yes. What do you guys as chapters have to do?
 
For the next month, let everyone know about this great opportunity to support the HPA and to pass the coupon voucher out to as many people as possible - friends, family, coworkers, etc. Even if all someone does is use the voucher with a latte at the Borders cafe or towards a paperback book, part of their sales will still be used to help us.
 
But wait, THERE’S MORE!
 
We are not permitted to pass out the coupon vouchers on the day of the event (as Borders considers this to be unwanted solicitation of customers), however,  we can set up information tables to explain who we are and what our goals are.  While chapters can contact your local stores individually, please email alysse@thehpalliance.org
if you are interested in setting up an information stand so she can give you additional information. She will also forward that information to Borders so that they can alert stores about setting up tables.  However, you would still need to confirm with your local Borders that you are setting up a table.
 
More info on Benefit Days.
*Coupon vouchers should be available on the website sometime soon. This thread will be updated when it is.

We need to get on this people!! :)

DFTBA and TTYL,

Jess

So, it’s January 2nd, which means A NEW HORCRUX!!!

-pauses for screams of excitement-

Really guys? Nothing?

Well, anyway, this month is all about BODY IMAGE and what true beauty really is. I know that since we’re all girls, we can understand how important of an issue this is.

Here is what the campaign is all about in the words of Emma S. on the HPA Ning.

“Throughout the month of January the Deathly Hallows Campaign is focusing on body issues. For the first week we’re going to concentrate specifically on body image. We want to cast rennervate and libercorups spells to bring our bodies back to life and liberate them. We want to break out of the Muggle mindset that defines what beauty is, and decide for ourselves what is truly aesthetic. We want you to share your opinions on everything from body image in the media to size acceptance. This forum is meant to act as a place for everyone to share tips, encouragement, and whatever else you can think of to help defeat the Body Bind Horcrux!”

Since I wasn’t able to make it to the livestream, this is all the information I have, so we’re going to work with this. If you have any suggestions/ideas on how to help this cause get out into the community, hit me up!

That’s about it for now, so I will talk to you all soon!

DFTBA!

Jess

Expecto Patronum!

This is a video our chapter made to submit to the Harry Potter Alliance to show how we fight depression. It was fun to work on and I hope you all enjoy it!

~Jess

• Andrew got very speech-makey (if that’s a word)
• I have a feeling Animal rights, LGBT rights, and Environmental Protection are gonna be somehow connected to the other horcruxes
• There are going to probably be Press, if I can ever get that situated, and we got tips on how to do it. 1) Speak Succinctly 2)It’s okay to not know something 3)Be smiley 4)Don’t be nervous. I’m sure there were more, but as I’m really tired and literally sped home from work to “watch” this, I can’t remember
• Bullies are like Dementors- Eat some Fair trade chocolate after dealing with them and you’ll feel better.
• Don’t be nervous approaching someone. Find a common interest or use a corny pick up line. (“I help CHILDREN, could you please hold my hand?” )
• Pedo Bear is out there! BEWARE OF PEDO BEAR!
• Every Signature Counts! We want to get 4,000 signatures this weekend
• Andrew can’t make a short speech to save his life….
• Oh, we got to listen to the majestic Sara of whom I don’t know if y’all know yet. Honestly, this girl is my hero, ngl. :)
• “Pics or it didn’t happen!”
• There is a REAL WORLD that isn’t the Internet (who knew?) BUT (see above)
• Give out fliers like they are going out of style
• Be courteous of others
• Uhm…Insert random “transfaning” and other randomness and that’s pretty much all I got out of it
• Oh, and check out this story on Fair Trade Chocolate and the HPA, pretty epic stuff with some crazy info in it.

OH! And there is gonna be another one at 3:00PM tomorrow, so I’m gonna try to be there until I have to leave for class at 5:00, so if any of you want to pick up shifts, that would be fantastic!

See some of you tomorrow! :D

Love you all and DFTBA

~Jess

(813)493-0963

Okay, so no long e-mail this time, just wanted to let y’all know what just happened. So, most of you know that I was trying to get a hold of a manager at the Regency AMC to make sure that we wouldn’t get kicked out for doing the petition. So, here is what happened today.

I called the toll-free number that was posted on their website and managed to get the robot to tell me the number of the customer service desk. There, a kind and slightly-confused girl managed to figure out what I was trying to do and told me that I had to call corporate. I then called corporate and said I was with the Harry Potter Alliance and explained what we wanted to do. My information was then taken and I am currently waiting on a call from the promotions/ lobby-something-or-other dude in our area. 

All in all, a bit less productive than I was hoping but a lot more happened today than happened yesterday thanks to my grandparents deciding to stop by. 

Anywho, keep being awesome, feel free to call my cell, and I will see you all on Thursday if not sooner! :)

~Jessie

(813)493-0963

P.S.- If you haven’t already, confirm that you are coming to the Lumos Party by texting/calling me ASAP so i can have a body count available should I be asked. 

Here it is:

Honestly, not too much “new news,” but I figured I should post it anyways. :)

Oh, and I’m now a part of the DHC Flash Staff, so if I start to slowly go off of the deep end, y’all know why. ;)

On to the Letter!!!

~Jess

Hey Chapters!
 
Here’s how you can help the HPA promote the DHC on TUESDAY!

First things first, have you heard about our Flagship event in NYC? It is going TO BE ONE GIANT Lumos Party! There is going to be a wizard duel and a parade with candles! Promote this event by tweeting and posting the link http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2478190779 to all of your accounts! Make sure that if you have any friends in NYC you tell them about it specifically.

Second, bring your petition to a club meeting, a hang out with friends, a party, a study group, a team practice or whatever and get everyone there to sign!

Finally - make sure that your chapter members are also getting this email! I know its hard toreach them sometimes, but as long as they see the email and are reminded about the importance of this on a regular basis, then we’re doing our jobs.

Alright! Let’s make this happen!
Sincerely,
Chapters Staff

So, this was sent to all of the Chapter Organizers, but since I’m too lazy to paraphrase this and tell y’all what you need to know, I’m just gonna copy/paste the email onto here. Just ignore the “chapter organizer” bit, but feel free to let me now how awesome I am this week… ;)

Oh, and don’t worry about the Galleon Day bit, already too care of it.

As for other important stuffs: Don’t forget your ticket, flashlight, or anything else on Saturday. Also, I need to find someone who has an operational video camera, so if you have one lemme know! :D

Okay, now on to the email:

Heylo there chapters!
 
This is going to be a rather long email, but its super important that you read the whole thing and then carry out as many of the tasks below as you are capable of, and forward it to your chapter members so that they can do the same. Instead of a Galleon Day post this week, this email will be posted in the Galleon Day section, with a nice little question for you to answer at the end. This email does not preclude you from responding to it like a Galleon Day on the Ning by going here http://hpachapters.ning.com/forum/categories/galleon-day-updates/listForCategory 

This week, we are going to have an email from the chapters staff EVERDAY. This email will contain a task that will help you help us to promote the Lumos Parties, the DHC and the HPA.

As you know, the release of Deathly Hallows Part 1 is this Friday. As our campaign is focused on Deathly Hallows and the Horcruxes which are so heavily featured in the story, this week is super, super important for us. It’s a great time for us to capitalize on all the media frenzy and attention that Harry Potter will be getting so that we can get our message out there. As such, we need as many people as humanely possible talking about the Harry Potter Alliance and the Deathly Hallows Campaign.

Here are things you can do to help:

Thursday, November 18 - Twitter Take Over! The HPA is going to be taking over twitter on Thursday, we need you to help! This means that you should tweet about the HPA, the petition and fair trade and your Lumos Party and everything else! Hashtag it #DHC

JOIN THE DHC FLASH STAFF by emailing deathlyhallows@thehpalliance.org (this is going to work just like the HPAFTW temp staff, except its going to be less regular - we’ll be calling on them randomly to add momentum to what we’re doing.)

Send in your pictures and videos from your Lumos Party - The most important, and I repeat  most important task for you at your Lumos Party is to get pictures! And videos! Even if you just take a video on your point and shoot digital camera, we want to see them! Email them to deathlyhallows@thehpalliance.org with the subject line “Lumos Party Photos and Videos.”

Attached, you’ll also find a paper petition that you can print out and bring along with you to all your events, including and ESPECIALLY your Lumos Parties.

Important Links (for yourself, for your tweets, your facebooks, your myspaces and to tattoo on your forehead!)

The letter: http://bit.ly/9Wm5Jp
The video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B63LmpkJwS0
And of course the petition: http://bit.ly/bX5L4G or http://dft.ba/-fairtrade
TUMBLR (reblog! Post to everything!) http://thehpalliance.tumblr.com/

If you have made it this far, you are the best chapter organizer ever. And I would love to hear from you that you read the email and that you’re excited about what we’re up to and if you have any questions.

We are what’s going to make this happen. We have the power and the drive to change the world, but we can only do it if we can get everyone who believes in this on board. Harry Potter is the going to be the center of the world’s attention now, as we witness the end of a story that has captured a generation. But we need you to make it happen.

So let’s get to work!

—
chapters@thehpalliance.org
www.thehpalliance.org/chapters

http://twitter.com/HPAChapters

Hey y’all!

 So, I told you all about the Deathly Hallows campaign that was starting, and, well, it just did! Our first horocrux we are trying to kill off is child slavery.

 Did you know that Child Slavery is used in making your chocolate? Read some more here, then come back.

Done yet? Okay, the basic gist is that major companies, INCLUDING the one who makes the chocolate products for The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, use child slaves to harvest the chocolate so they can keep costs down for us. Now, I love chocolate as much as the next person, as you all know, but I revere human life much more. So, we have a petition going on to stop this. The form is on the webpage I gave you, and if you wouldn’t mind, since I know most of you aren’t sorted, please put Ravenclaw as your house.

We are also doing a Lumos party while we are in line for the movie. I am going to be working with a CO in St. Pete to try to make our point come across clearly to everyone who will see us. I’m considering making shirts, and I know for a fact that we will need flashlights.

Please let me know of any ideas you have, and let your friends know about this. With enough voices, we will be heard and a change will come about. Also, please let me know in some way if you are coming, and maybe sign up for the meetup on the website?

It goes without saying that love is our strongest weapon and this is a good way to show it.

DFTBA! (Don’t Forget to be Awesome!)

~Jess

Soooo,

 I kept forgetting to tell y’all about this, so I decided to just post and link to it on every site I go to.

Anyways, welcome to the official tumblr of our local HPA chapter- The Tampa Thestrals. Info on what the heck a HPA chapter is located here.  The basic gist, is that we are working to help others and to share the strongest power that we have- Love.

What can I do to join?

I am so gad you asked. Just email me at tampathestrals@yahoo.com and let me know.As a member, I’ll join you to the email/facebook list so you can know what is going on. We don’t have any set meeting times, but will be working on that as time goes on. Right now, all you have to do is 1) Be a HP fan, 2) Love helping others, and 3) Be online at least once a week.

So, there are a lot of things going on in the HPA that, as your CO, I thought I should let you know about.

In honor of the release of the Deathly Hallows movies, we are doing a campaign starting in November. Here is the official release from the website.

The Deathly Hallows Campaign – November 2010 – July 2011 

The release dates for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I and Part II are fast approaching, and the HPA has big plans. To celebrate the end of an era, The HPA will soon be launching a campaign of epic proportions: The Deathly Hallows Campaign. Harry Potter fans are invited to join us starting in November and running all the way through to the release of Part II in July 2011, we will battle to destroy 7 real-world horcruxes.

Be sure to sign up for our mailing list and check back here often as we prepare to launch into our own battle against real-world evils. It will be unlike anything our community has ever done before.

Get ready.

Also, as some of you know, the HPA does a book drive every Spring to help increase literacy in some desperately needed areas, which is called “Accio! Books.” Last year, in a matter of two weeks, I alone donated over a thousand books. Even though I don’t have 400 books to steal from my personal library this year, I think we can do better than that if we all work together. Right now, my goal is to get 2,000 books, but I think we can get much more than that if we work at it.

To help, look around your house for any books you don’t need. I will personally come and pick them up from your house if you need me to. Ask people you know from work, school, church, etc. for their books as well. Also, as we get closer to Spring, I think we should go to garage sales and see if we can get some books for dirt cheep. I know that if you wait until the sales are almost done, you can sometimes get an entire box of books for five dollars. I know that it isn’t technically until Spring, but if we start now, we won’t have to worry so much about it later.

Oh, and LeakyCon2011 is this coming Summer and is going to be an absolute blast! My mom and I got a timeshare, so we can room up to 12 people total, so if you want to come, lemme know! More info here.

If you have ANY comments/concerns/suggestions AT ALL about anything I’ve mentioned or not, feel free to email, facebook, or tweet me.

Thanks so much and I look forward to working with y’all!!

Much Love,

JL