AUSTIN — Frequent KVUE viewers are likely familiar with ABC’s reality TV show, “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” In the show, a team of home designers travels to a city and surprises a deserving family with building them the home of their dreams in just seven days.

Because Bastrop was hit so hard by the Labor Day wildfires, the show has chosen the city to be the location for one of their builds.

The project will start on Dec. 7, and the Bastrop family, who has yet to be revealed, should see their new home on Dec. 14.

An average of 3,000 volunteers are needed to pull off the entire project. Anyone with construction skills such as framing, roofing pluming, etc. are encouraged to participate as well as hundreds of helping hands are needed to serve food, pass out water bottles, pick up trash, etc. Volunteers must be 18 years or older.

Central Texans are asked to attend a free community pep rally Tuesday night that will kick off the event. The pep rally will take place from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Jerry Fay Wilhelm Center for Performing Arts (in the main auditorium) at 1401 Cedar Street, Bastrop, TX 78602. The center can be reached at             512-832-8588      .

Central Texans are also needed to volunteer for the build and to donate building supplies.

Click here for more information.

source

We have a special treat for our guests this year in the form of screenings of two fan favorite episodes: Firefly’s Out of Gas and Buffy’s Once More, With Feeling. This is extremely special, since FOX rarely allows public screenings of these episodes! We haven’t seen Once More, With Feeling at an Austin CSTS event since 2007!

Check out our full schedule of events, available at our website for details. We have a fun filled day planned on Saturday, complete with costume contests, charity auctions, and raffles.  In addition to Serenity and the special episodes, we will be showing Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog again this year.  For those who may not be able to attend our events on Saturday, our Sunday event will include only a screening of Serenity and Out of Gas at 12 PM.

Wait, that’s not all! During our CSTS events this year and with the help of our friend Stephanie Pellegrin, we are holding a new book drive benefiting Kids Need to Read. For every new children’s or young adult book you donate, you will receive one raffle ticket for a chance to win one of our awesome Firefly and Joss themed prizes. Some prices are valued for over $100. The person who donates the most books per show will also win a prize. Please see our website for details.

So what are you waiting for? Get your tickets now!  And don’t forget to check out our 2011 CSTS merch also available on our website.  We have our coveted Big Damn Bags on sale again.  They include a ticket to the event, a CSTS 2011 event shirt, a custom piece of ‘Verse artwork…and more!  You can pre-order shiny CSTS T-shirts, posters, Jayne Hats, and embroidered patches.

Last year, we raised over $30,000 for charity. This year will mark the $100,000+ total raised marker for Austin Browncoats during our CSTS events. Let’s blow last year’s totals out of the water! Together we can make Austin CSTS 2011 the best one yet!

Sadly, we will not be attending San Japan. We had our usual convention alley tables confirmed on March 24th, but then we were told there were space limitations and had to be relocated to a different area. This new area will not work for our booth needs.

We’re so sorry for any Browncoats who saw this event on our calendar and expected us to be there. We never meant to mislead you.

Need your Browncoat fix? You can see us at MechaCon on August 26th – 28th — if you’re not already going, you should attend! New Orleans is so much fun! Hope to see you there!

We’re excited to announce at this year’s Can’t Stop the Serenity event we’ll be holding a book drive for the Kids Need to Read charity. See our Book Drive page for more information and a link to KNTR’s list of preferred books. Each book donated counts as an entry in our event raffle as well!

So get shoppin’ and we’ll see you at Austin CSTS in September!

We were recently made aware that the IRS placed us on an exemption revocation list.  Stunned, to say the least, we contacted the IRS and found that we were listed in error.  We have been compliant, as per the IRS’ mandated requirements for all exempt organizations.

We are working with our accountant, a professional with a long history dealing with the IRS and taxes, to ensure our exemption is reinstated post-haste.  Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as pushing a button.  There is a lot of red tape, it seems, even when the error is not of our making.

That being said, the IRS has informed us that we are still allowed to run “business as usual” during the 30 day process that is required in order to fix this egregious error.  Once they have dotted all of the appropriate i’s, the system will retroactively reinstate our exemption.

I want to reiterate that we were compliant with the IRS.  We did not fail to fill out the appropriate paperwork.  Unfortunately, we are one a few organizations who were accidentally affected by this mass revocation project.  We do support the IRS in ensuring all exempt organizations are compliant.  If one group has to suffer to ensure all of the groups are being held accountable – well, we are Browncoats, are we not?

If you have any questions, please email info@austinbrowncoats.com.

Thank you for all of your hard work and support throughout the years.

Keep flyin’

Austin Browncoats

Head over to Brent’s gallery to peruse through the photos.

Big Damn Bags are also now available in extremely limited quantities. Get yours now: CSTS 2011 Merch

As all of you know, at CSTS we can screen Serenity, Dr. Horrible. Well, we’ve been given permission to screen a fan favorite. Stay tuned!

Every quarter, we’ll announce our Volunteer Spotlight, an outstanding Austin Browncoat Volunteer.

These star volunteers are nominated by other Austin Browncoats.  To nominate star volunteers, visit our volunteer page: http://www.austinbrowncoats.com/volunteer.php

First Quarter 2011 – Volunteer Spotlight: Outstanding Volunteer

Heidi Berthiaume

http://www.austinbrowncoats.com/volunteerspotlight.php

Happy holidays! We hope this holiday season is treating you well! We’ve had an exciting year…and it’s not over yet!  We’ve traveled cross country from New York City to Los Angeles in order to raise money for our supported charities.   We’ve worked countless hours, we’ve knitted hundreds of Jayne hats and we’ve sold a whole lotta Serenitea!  We want to thank you for your love and support.  Without our members, we wouldn’t be able to help all of the amazing charities we’ve supported this year.   Remember, you don’t need to live in Austin to be an Austin Browncoat.

Who did Austin Browncoats Support?

We sent monetary donations to:

Equality Now
Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center
Kids Need to Read
SafePlace
American Diabetes Association
Jobs for Youth

Throughout the year, we support numerous other charities by giving them tangible donations they can use to raffle, auction or eBay for additional funds.

“If You Can’t Do Something Smart, Do Something Right”

Some people still ask us why we do “this”.  Some people still ask us if all this work is “worth it”.  Those people are the reason we are still working 40+ volunteer hours a week.  In this day and age, if there are still people who question why we’re working so hard to end violence and discrimination, there is truly something wrong.  To paraphrase a wonderfully written character, we are all here for different reasons — whether that be our love of Firefly, Nathan Fillion, the sense of family and community or the love of doing good works — but now we need to pull together and really fight to make this world a better place.  At this very moment, there are people suffering from violence and discrimination.  It is easy to think that it’s happening somewhere else; it’s easy to think that it’s not happening here.  The truth?  It’s happening in your backyard.  So, join us.  Become an active Austin Browncoat.  Bring your friends along, too, because being a Browncoat is more than just loving Firefly and Joss Whedon.  It’s about fighting for what is right…and in my opinion, if you do something right, you’re making the smartest decision possible.

Can’t Stop the Austin Browncoats

Photos by Brent LaVelle

All of our hard work culminated in Austin and San Antonio’s Can’t Stop The Serenity (CSTS) events.  Every year, dozens of cities across the globe gather to watch Serenity and raise money for Equality Now (and other supported charities).

Austin’s CSTS involvement began in 2006 when Alamo Drafthouse first partnered with local Browncoats in order to raise $500 for Equality Now. With 41 cities participating from 5 different countries, we raised $65,900.24 which was an amazing amount of money for such a small, grassroots charity event.

Austin Browncoats formed in 2007 and hosted CSTS as their first major fundraising event. Raising over $6000 for Equality Now, we couldn’t stop there…and neither could the rest of the world. We raised $106,165.69 with 42 cities in 7 countries participating.

2008 was a great, yet trying year for Austin Browncoats. We not only hosted our own CSTS event, but we also ran 2008′s Global Team, as well, with the assistance of some amazing individuals, such as Dr. Miranda Ween fro Adelaide. Thinking back on some of the trials and victories of 2008, it reminds me of my closing statement as CSTS 2008′s Global Organizer:

“We faced adversity together and triumphed over it. That makes us mighty, and it makes me proud to call myself a Browncoat. The easy times don’t often show a person’s true character; it’s how people act when met with conflict that shows their real nature.”

This rings true for all occasions. It especially rings true for the Browncoat community. Austin Browncoats is not your run of the mill non-profit organization. In 2008, Austin American Statesmen journalist, Andrea Ball, asked us why we chose the name “Austin Browncoats” since it wouldn’t automatically educate people about our cause (in comparison to SafePlace, Kids Need to Read, American Diabetes Association, etc.). I remember expressing to her that we could’ve named ourselves something more “obvious” to the mainstream, but that would be missing the mark. We don’t just want to work with individuals who already donate to our type of charity. We want to work with those individuals who are naturally philanthropic, but just haven’t found a charity they feel understands them and their charitable goals. We want to raise money for our supported charities that wouldn’t have been donated had it not been for our unique brand of philanthropy. To some, this might seem like an odd choice, but Browncoats understand what we mean. By doing this, we’re generating a brand new donation stream instead of tapping into already appropriated donation funds.

2008 brought Austin its biggest donation yet of $10,883.40 in support of Equality Now. We also assisted the Houston CSTS event hosted by the Houston Browncoats who raised an amazing $7,634.04 for charity! Overall, we had 45 cities in 4 countries who raised a total of $107,219.15.

We decided the excitement of running Austin’s CSTS event wasn’t enough in 2009. We added a city: San Antonio. We’ve been contacted by a number of cities across the US (and a few outside of the US) asking if we’d help run their event. It’s so hard to do this remotely, but with San Antonio, we could drive the 90 minutes and be there to run the event ourselves! Challenge accepted, per usual, we were now running two full CSTS events. Again, people asked us why we were taking on another event. People wanted to know why we were putting ourselves through so much work. I answered simply:

“While we love Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion and PJ Haarsma, our reasons for doing what we’re doing are bigger than those three talented gentleman.  For us, it all boils down to what is right and what is wrong; the fundamental principles we all learned as children through books, through parents, through school are the basis for our support.  Do we all deserve equality? Yes.  Are we all equal right now? No.  The necessity of charitable organizations like Kids Need To Read  and Equality Now proves that to us.”

The more we educated people about what we were fighting for (and against), the more they wanted to support us and our efforts.

“In the 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report, it states that while a true number is unknown, it is believe that an “estimated 600,000 to 800,000 men, women, and children [are trafficked] across international borders each year, approximately 80 percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors.”  Taking the low estimate, that means that 300,000 minors are trafficked, with the majority of those victims being trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation.  (Remember, these figures focus on transnational trafficking and not victims who are trafficked within their own borders.)”

We let our attendees know that these travesties are not just occurring over “there” with “there” equating to some far away land. An estimated 17,000 people are trafficked into the United States each year. Many of these people are young girls being forced into prostitution. This is happening here, not just “there”. Some people asked how it could be happening in 2009. Secretary Hillary Clinton explained that in times of global financial crisis, individuals are more likely to take risks for economic gain which could lead to even higher trafficking numbers. (http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2009/123123.htm)

Our message was heard loud and clear in both Austin and San Antonio. We raised a total of $25,632.82 for charity, supporting both Equality Now and Kids Need To Read. A remarkable 50 cities in 7 countries raised $137,331.14 overall!

This brings me to 2010, the year of the Tiger. We started off this year aggressively. We attended more conventions than any previous year. We shook things up and made a lot of changes to our operations. We added more items to our inventory and gained a lot of new volunteers. We started our first storefront at Sherwood Forest Faire, “Wares of Whedon” and learned that we’re pretty handy when it comes to building, painting and carrying tea pots in creative manners.

When CSTS season can around, we were excited to see what we could do to shake things up. In comes Ron Glass, a true class act. He was our guest for Austin’s CSTS event, including auctioning off three seats at a dinner event with him in attendance. Ron hosted a couple Q&A’s, an hour long autograph session and was just, plain charming the entire time he was in Austin.

We hosted four screenings in Austin this time around, including our “Senior Citizens” event, for folks who just want to watch Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and Serenity and don’t want to see costume contests or raffle prizes. We included our usual introduction video (you know, about the Enterprise and stuff…), our costume contest, raffle and live auction (which included a particularly realistic Mal being detained by the even more realistic Austin Police Department because another movie-goer thought his guns were real). We even had special guests, The Bedlam Bards who stopped by to enjoy the show and let us know about Sonny Rhodes’ birthday party! All in all, it was an extremely successful weekend of events!

In San Antonio, we downgraded to two screenings due to some timing conflicts, but still had a joyous time with our San Antonio Browncoats. We hosted raffles, auctions, watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and Serenity and enjoyed talking about other geeky treasures including Doctor Who and Logan’s Run. One of the best things to come from our San Antonio CSTS event, besides the donation to charity, was a newly formed San Antonio Browncoats group. For years, we’ve shepherded and guided the San Antonio Browncoats, but they’re ready to take the reins…and we’re extremely excited and proud! They are currently recruiting more members as we speak: www.sanantoniobrowncoats.com.

After the dust settled from 3 days of Can’t Stop the Serenity fundraising, Austin Browncoats raised a total of $37,000 for charity. We were able to donate money to 4 amazing charities – Equality Now, Al Wooten Jr. Heritage Center, Kids Need to Read and SafePlace. We’re excited to see what this money will mean to these dedicated non-profit organizations. While the Global tally for 2010 isn’t complete yet, as of today, we’ve raised $118,061 for charity. (And that’s with 14 cities still waiting to be added to the total!)

We said it perfectly in 2009:

“Austin Browncoats believe that we can save the world, one shindig at a time.  Can’t Stop The Serenity shows us that not only is our motto a possibility, but it is our reality.  We are helping to save the world, one shindig at a time, with the help of Browncoats all across the globe.  The war again injustice and inequality will not be won by one person, one voice, one donation, one article, one charity; it will take a village.  Or perhaps a crew of Big Damn Heroes.  Good thing we know just where to find them.”

Thank you for reading, volunteering, sponsoring, attending and being a Big Damn Hero in your own right!

See you next year,
Beth Nelson
Chairman
Austin Browncoats

The Future of Can’t Stop the Serenity

We’re going to host a meeting in January to discuss the future of Austin Browncoats and Can’t Stop the Serenity. Interested in getting more involved? Keep an eye on the website and forum! We’d love for you to attend.

Austin Browncoats Community Scholarship

It has always been a dream of ours to help underprivileged students be able to attend an accredited university. We knew we wanted to start a scholarship program, but didn’t know when we would be able to achieve something like this.

On November 11th, 2010, we submitted our first scholarship to Austin Independent School District. It’s called “Austin Browncoats Community Scholarship”. It is a need and merit based scholarship available to graduating seniors with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 (on the 4.0 scale) who also have a strong volunteer background. This scholarship will give the recipient up to $1,000 toward their education.

Interested in applying? Talk to your school counselor or visit the Naviance – College and Career Counseling site.

We’re working on ideas for a fundraiser centered around awarding this scholarship to the lucky winner, once they’ve been chosen. Have ideas? Send them to us via info@austinbrowncoats.com.

Monthly Donations

Austin Browncoats is a fundraising charity. We help other non-profits with the most difficult part of the job – fundraising and volunteerism. We want to be true to our grassroots, so we decided to start a monthly donation. We’re going to donate at least $500 a month to one of our supported charities.

October’s charity was SafePlace, Austin’s emergency shelter. We believe in the work they’re doing and know just how important it is for them to be well-funded and well-staffed. October is also Domestic Violence Awareness Month, http://dvam.vawnet.org/, so we found it fitting to give our month donation to a charity so dedicated to ending violence and discrimination against all people.

SafePlace exists to end sexual and domestic violence. Nationally recognized for its innovative and effective programs, we have been providing women, children and men a place of safety, compassion and empowerment in Austin, Texas since 1974. As a community we can make a difference. We can have a community free of rape, sexual abuse and domestic violence. We invite you to join us.

November’s charity was Heart House Austin.

Heart House’s innovative afterschool program is the only daily program for school-age children in a neighborhood known for its high crime, high unemployment, and lack of affordable, quality care for children. At Heart House, children have access to caring adult mentors, homework assistance, art enrichment, computer learning, health and safety education, and literacy programs.

December’s charity is Emancipet.

EmanciPet, Inc., founded in 1999, is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt nonprofit organization located in Austin, Texas. EmanciPET is dedicated to preventing animal homelessness and putting an end to euthanasia as a means of population control by providing low-cost or free surgical sterilization of dogs and cats. This website is designed to inform pet owners (and future pet owners) about our services and raise awareness about the pet overpopulation problem in Austin and the spay/neuter solution. In the city of Austin alone, almost 1,000 dogs and cats are euthanized each month! If more pet owners had their pets spayed or neutered, the number of animals euthanized would decrease. If you own a dog or cat, we urge you to join us in combating animal overpopulation and euthanasia by having your pet spayed or neutered.

Want to help us pick January’s Monthly Donation? Email us at: charity@austinbrowncoats.com with the subject: January’s Monthly Donation.

For a list of charities we support, check out our website: www.austinbrowncoats.com/charities.php

Want to recommend a new charity we should support? Let us know! Email us at: charity@austinbrowncoats.com with the subject: Check out this charity!

Want to donate money specifically for any of our special donations, such as a monthly donation or our scholarship program? We’d love for your support! You can donate here: www.austinbrowncoats.com/donate.php

Our 2011 Initiative

We are developing our goals for 2011. We want to see a few more awesome things happen.

• We want to get back to our local roots and make sure we’ve putting together great, local shindigs for our volunteers, including karaoke, lasertag, Browncoats Dining Out, etc.
• We want to host Geekstravaganza 2011 again!
• We want to find more local fundraising and volunteer opportunities, such as supporting local food banks and clothing drives.
• We want to work on a non-dated calendar (you enter your own dates) of Geek Girls with all proceeds going to charity.
• What else should we do? Have any suggestions? Email us at info@austinbrowncoats.com.
• We want to work on having an office and/or storefront in Austin, so we need Grant Writers desperately.

Thank you for taking the time to read through our “Donation Year in Review” Newsletter. Please think of us when organizing your future schedule. We are always in need of volunteers, especially Grant Writers.

Keep flyin’!
Austin Browncoats

We have four awesome autographed items up for grabs:

• The Shepherd’s Tale signed by Ron Glass
• “Shindig” script signed by Jane Espenson
• *Serenity* comic signed by Morena Baccarin
• *Serenity* comic signed by Adam Baldwin

and we have a few other surprises we might giveaway, too, if things get really exciting!

So, shop til you drop, Browncoats. Know that all the proceeds go to charity and that your purchase is helping amazing charities, such as Kids Need To Read, Equality Now and SafePlace.

There is no spending minimum, nor are there are other qualifiers besides having to make at least one purchase during Black Friday.

All the best,
Austin Browncoats